Clockwork Omega

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

The worm was eating its way through the city bit by bit, unleashing an all-devouring hunger that seemed to consume anything that came its into path, but the ship Siobhan, @[member="Hevana Martin"] and @[member="Tegaea Alcori"] were on was pulling back.

Having taken over the controls she steered the ship away from the Omega Tower and took towards orbit. As much as Siobhan expected to some day go out in a blaze of glory - and given her personality, that would probably seem like the right end to her - she had no desire to stay put here and get eaten.

After all, war was about making the guy on the other side bleed.

"We're heading for orbit," she said matter-of-factly, not asking for permission. "Ammo's running low, shields ain't much better and robo Vandelhelm worm is eating the city."

 

[Qae Shena]

@[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Red Queen"]

Suddenly, Ayden had handed her weapons. This, to Allaina, was a strange turn of events; generally, most people did not give her close quarters weapons beyond her sidearm for a very valid reason. Now, stripped of the only weapon she was even vaguely qualified on, she was defenceless. Or felt it, anyway. You could've given her a lightsaber and she'd still feel the same.

With the gigantic mechabeast rampaging all around Omega Pyre's precious holdings, there was little hope left. Really, Allaina wasn't comfortable any more. She didn't have a ship and she was handling weaponry she'd seen maybe once or twice before. Now she was responsible for covering their collective asses on the way back to the control centre. Right. Sure. Whatever.

"You do realise that the best I'm going to be able to do with this is point it at the other guy and pray, right?" she asked quizzically. "The frakking hell is even going on here?"

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Allaina Mare"], @[member="Red Queen"]


"That's generally how one uses a flechette launcher, yes." Ayden smirked and eyed the weapon. "Something gets within arm's reach of you, just pull the trigger on that and it'll go away." He turned and started back towards their objective. "Right now, there's a rogue AI in our systems. It's disrupting our communications and working on turning our own defenses against us. If we're going to turn things around, we need to have all our systems cleared and secure." Another series of rumblings went out, causing Ayden to hold himself against a wall until they subsided. "And whatever -that- was, I get the feeling that we're going to need the biggest guns we've got to take it out."

As they moved deeper into the underground complex, Ayden continued to cut apart locks and force doors open. Every once in a while, they'd spot a datapad on the floor, or some other little item that had been dropped. Combined with the unnatural quiet and lack of other people, it made for a very disturbing and surreal experience. "Once we get our systems restored, we'll head over to one of the secondary hanger bays and grab a shuttle from there." She definitely seemed someone more at ease in a ship than on foot; something he could passingly relate to. So long as this AI was kept out of their inner systems, they had a chance.

 

[Cira]

@[member="Jonathon Patches"] @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

"Bastasi!" came the savage curse ripping from her lips at the added weight. A grunt came from her lips, her eyes drifting up, upper lip curling slightly as her right hand reached up to steady herself within the gunship. There was a fluttering in her senses.

While the Sereph and the Blade droids had immediately attacked the previous ship, there was a definite lack of destruction. "For a droid, they are certainly taking their sweet damn time." came her sarcastic response.

There, she felt it. A lifesignature where there was supposed to be none. "This one is more of the two legged variety and a bit more red-blooded." she said, making her way towards the small ladder that would lead to the outside.

Another grunt, a twist of the circular handle, and the hatch swung open. Still in atmo, the wind combined with the windspeed sent her red hair whipping round her face. Popping half out of the circular hatch, she threaded her fingers through her hair as she she attempted to locate the lifesignature she'd felt. Could it be one of my own?

She spotted him not too long after; dangling and hanging on for dear life like a leech to a nerf's ass. She couldn't get a good look at his face, but none the less, extended her hand towards him.

"Take my hand," she shouted above the roaring wind. It was an order.

 

[Jonathon Patches]

@[member="Cira"] , @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

Uh oh, he mused to himself, feeling the ship accelerate and turn skyward. He knew that approach and speed; they were burning for space, which was a bit unsettling for Patches, as the more they climbed, the more he felt himself between a rock and a hard place. Too far to jump, and spaceward... well... I left my envirosuit in my other pants, he mused to himself.

He pulled out his blaster, and began tapping the hull in his best form of morse code, though he was a bit out of practice. H.... E..... P.... L.... Did I get that right?

H... E... P... L...

Given the firefight and everything going on around, he wasn't sure if his tapping could be heard, so he slowly crawled his way to the forward viewport, figuring this would be the best way to get the pilot's attention... assuming the pilot cared at all. He inched closer and closer, just a few feet away, when a sharp turn and bank sent him sprawling back, rolling across the ships hull, before his hand found it's grip near meters from the ships end and straight into it's engine wash.

Not today... this is not the day you die, he mused to himself, and then another hard bank, his grip weakened ever so. Ok... ok... maybe this is the day, he mused to himself, not wanting to anger any gods that may be enjoying themselves at his expense, like sick, twisted puppeteers ticking away at some mystical keyboard.

Pulling himself up, his feet inching ever farther away from the danger of the ships engine wash, he was about to give up all hope, when a head popped out above him; a glorious, beautiful, red hair fluttering in the wind, lips moving to bark some order he could hardly hear over the whine of the engines, head! Crawling his way forward, he did what he assumed he was being told to do, and took the extended hand, pulling himself in as he slid head first through the port hole, his hands breaking his fall as the rest of him soon followed against the relative safety of the inside of the ship.

Catching his breath for a moment, he let out a sight of relief, as he simply muttered, "Thanks for the lift..." through shortness of breath.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Cira"], @[member="Jonathon Patches"]

"Gorramit, boss.", Sarge grunts as the hatch opening threw the ship for a hard bank as it's aerodynamics were thrown off considerably by the action. "Even near space you have men - quite literally - dying to be with you.", he adds through gritted teeth, fighting for dear life against the control stick.

Wrenching it around, he levels off and heads spaceward again, shoulders slumping and sagging as the hatch is no doubt shut when the... he knew that voice.

He kriffin' knew that voice.

Turning to look from the cockpit, the skull helmet leering at Patches, a feral grin split Sarge's lips. "Well, well, well, look what the frigid queen dragged in. How's it goin' Kneecaps. I heard you needed hepl." Yeah, yeah he'd caught the banging on the hull alright.

Around them, thing atmosphere became black void and nestled among the stars, dead ahead, was Ayden's new ship trailing the mooring it'd broken when it violently left the shipyards on Sarge's orders.

 

[Cira]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"] @[member="Jonathon Patches"]

Oh Cira didn't miss the lovely endearment Sarge gave her; her eyes narrowed at the solider, but she let it slide. He did after all, provide said cover fire. And picked her up.

Other far more important matters were at stake; like who the man was. Cira gave Jonathon a steely look, "Who are you." her eyes narrowed even further into thin slits of suspicion.

 

[Jonathon Patches]

@[member="Cira"] , @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

His head rested against the bulkhead when he realized whom his unknowing rescuers were. Not so much the red head with a grip of steel, but the tin man flying the thing.

Siong mao niao, he mused to himself, bumping his head against the bulkhead a few times. Deciding to make the most of the situation, he turned his attention to morse code Mr. Know-it-all, and quipped "Was just inspecting the hull before you broke atmosphere," he said, while tapping his hand against the bulkhead, "Those hairline fractures can cause a real problem in space sometimes," he added with a smug grin, then turned to the red head.

They always want my name... why do they ALWAYS want my name? He debated on doing the usual 'I'll tell you mine if you share me yours,' routine, but thought better of it. The tin man flying this boat would call mularkey and probably cap him for good measure.

He offered her his hand, in hopes that she would help him to his feet, as he said "Jonathon Patches, young miss... and you would be?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Cira"], @[member="Jonathon Patches"]

"Only sometimes, I'm afraid.", he grumbles. "The better question to be askin' boss is 'why was he in our tower'." Deftly flipping a few switches, he sets the ship to autopilot for the moment. It would be another couple of minutes before they were even close enough to consider docking with the ship.
Walking from the cockpit and into the hold he looks from Patches to Cira and then back again. "Her? Your worst nightmare. I know, I know, she's quite something to look at; but don't let it fool ya! She's a mean one... Mrs. Grinch."

Yeah, he was basically asking to be shot at this point.

Instead of letting her help him up, Sarge simply takes a painfully firm hold on the man's hand and rips him up off the ground so that their faces were mere inches apart. "Keep your hands off my ship in the future.", he snarls before leaving him go.

 

[Qae Shena]

@[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Red Queen"]

The rumbles shook the building and instilled a sense of dread in Allaina. This wasn't familiar territory for her; she wasn't a close-quarters epxert, a blaster-user or... well, any kind of actual combat-equipped person. Outside of a vehicle, which she could do well, she was useless. Necessity dictated this outing, however, thanks to the fact that everything was being assaulted and invaded by evil mecha.

"I think the others might be solving the problem of the giant... thing," Allaina said, pondering how long it'd take them. "I'm sure we'll just grab a Jaeger from orbit and drop some hammer blows on it and hopefully not take out the tower. Knowing them, they won't think of the radiation damage they'd leave behind." It was all too true. Orbital bombardment was not a good thing for anything - landscape or target. Typically it left the ground untenable for quite some time. Omega Pyre was going to need a rad team if they committed the strike.

Staying particularly close to Ayden, Allaina paused as a hydrospanner dropped behind them. "I heard something move back there," she said, raising the flechette launcher to her shoulder as standard reflex. Things didn't just drop like that, did they? The paranoia was setting in now. It was fairly clear she was incredibly uncomfortable with this.

 

[Hevana Martin]

"But... yes Ma'am," Hevana said reluctantly. Whatever might happen behind closed doors, on the battlefield SIobhan was in charge. That was part of her training that would likely remain with her until the end of her life. Which, given the hurt state of things, could be a very short one at that. There were a lot of droids swarming around out there after all.

Relinquishing the controls Hevana made her way back to the turret that Siobhan had vacated. Strapping in she set to work trying to blast the little beasties out of the sky. "I was killing more of them driving!" she said to the other two women. "And I wont be much help at all once we run out of ammo. Why does this thing use ammo anyway? Hook a laser cannon up to the main power and you got unlimited ammo... and frak thats a big metal worm!"

As the metal whatever the heck it was popped out of the ground, Hevana turned her gun onto it. With the expected result: nothing. "...maybe I can shoot a missile down its throat or something?

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea clambered up to the front of the ship. "Orbit. Now." It was not leaving any room for debate whatsoever.

In orbit the Sigma station was waiting along with most of the Omega fleet. They had already told them to disconnect any access to the holonet, and keep all transmissions on old fashioned radio waves. Once they got there they could get things co-ordinated.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"I'm thinking a big bomb," Siobhan said dryly to @[member="Hevana Martin"] when she noted the inefficacy of their weapons systems against the mech thresher maw automaton that seemed to have taken a liking to their city.

Regardless she swiftly steered the ship towards orbit, where she had already been heading before Tegs' command. While the city was in flames and the machines prowled it like hungry lions, their ship moved into space and docked at the Sigma station. Several frigates and other ships surrounded the station, At least at this juncture the machines did not possess space forces, at least as far as Siobhan knew.

Siobhan sighed in frustration, then her expression just showed grim resolve when they docked at the station. A contingent of troops was there to greet them.

"Colonel," one officer addressed @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]. "It's good to see you alive. We feared for the worst. Where's the Prex?"

"MIA," Siobhan responded flatly, not in the mood for chit-chat. She had seen Cira fly down and still felt her Force signature when they took off, but they to concentrate on the here and now. "We'll break those damn machines. What's your status?"

"Secure, we observed radio silence. But just before shutting the 'net down the tech boys picked up a couple transmissions. Many of 'em are garbled but this one attack isn't isolated. We know for sure Coruscant's been struck. Same with Corellia."


Siobhan's jaw tightened. "Fondor first. Then go and blow up the rest of them. Let's get to the war room. And get a list of what forces we got here."

 

[Jak Sandrow]

Jak watched the ship roar away from him. He felt somewhat angry, but the sense of fear overwhelmed that. He decided to head back to the main core to see if he could meet up with Ayden and Allaina. He knew that everyone in his ship would be curious as to why he had jumped back into the tower. But Jak knew. He had privately challenged the Red Queen to a cyber battle - winner takes planet. As of yet she had not responded, but he was very confident in his abilities. He also knew that, if Ayden were to find out, he would severely reprimand Jak. So Jak didn't tell him.

 

[Red Queen]

​

​

The various cameras alongside every corridor of Omega Pyre tower drew to follow any sentients moving.​

​

A cackle of manic mirth went echoing.​

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[[ Ah ah ah.... This is MY game ]]​

​

There came the the sound of whirring.​

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[[ Come on my little droids! We are having a paaaaarty! ]]​

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Throughout the corridors, the reprogrammed droids shot lethal doses of sedatives to all they could find.​

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[[ I see you!! ]] ​

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​

Her face flickered on every holoscreen; any holo array not turned on was soon a lit as her image came to life.​

She stared down at @[member="Ayden Cater"], @[member="Jak Sandrow"], @[member="Allaina Mare"]​

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a wolfish grin.​

​

[[ You can run. ]]​

​

Behind Ayden and Allaina, the heavy footfalls echoed down the corridor.​

But these were of something far larger than medical droids.​

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[[ But you can't hide ]]​

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The image flickered.​

There came the whir of hydrolics.​

[[ I'm not just taking over your building]]​

​

They would be familiar to Ayden. There were two Omega Pyre Light War Mechs. ​

Completely controlled by the Red Queen herself.​

[[ But all of Fondor ]]​

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Various computer systems went haywire as the Red Queen's decrypting of the weaponized new tech finally went through.​

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[[ It's not just my babies ]]​

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It was a direct reference to the droids.​

[[ But those among you ]]​

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Another sinister grin, and suddenly the camera panned closer to her face, reflecting the bright red crimson eyes of the Red Queen.​

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[[ We are already there. Next to you ]]​

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Another giggle.​

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[[ You will be assimilated ]]​

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Another flicker of the screen.​

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The planetary turrets that were the first line of defense came online.​

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[[ Welcome to my first shooter ]]​

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The winding of the turrets began to charge up then slowly began to swing over towards Omega Pyre Tower.​

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[[ Bang bang.. ]]​

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The Mech droids began to fire at Ayden and Allaina. While up in the building, medical droids went chasing after Jak.​

Down in the mainframe, unbeknownst to all, the droid body that was of the Red Queen stood over the holocamera recording her presence. Her body shimmered, molten silver, and almost seem to ... shift. Indeed, it was shifting.​

​

Nanites were literally crawling over her body.​

 

[Cira]

@[member="Jonathon Patches"] @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]

"Drop him Sarge," came Cira's curt order, but Sarge had already thrown back the man. She ended up walking past him to put herself in front of the stranger and the Jayne lookalike. Gold eyes went narrowing, "Jonathon Patches," came the questioning statement. It was easy to see that she didn't believe him.

​

​

That's when she took one of Sarge's many blasters that she was sure he had, and pointed it at Patches. Safety was off in an instant; her trigger finger itching.

"Try another one." Her voice was cold hard steel. "Who are you?" It was clear she wasn't going to believe him, and frankly, she had her fill of random folk popping in her karking home without a by your leave.

"And give me one kark forsaking reason why I shouldn't shoot you right here right now!"

 

[Ayden Cater]

@[member="Allaina Mare"], @[member="Red Queen"]
Prex Tower
Sub-level 02


"Kark me in the roddin'... Run!" Ayden turned and high-tailed down the long hall. Leave it to the rampant AI to spring a trap like this on them as they went down a long hallway. Their only saving grace was the low ceiling. The mech wasn't particularly fast, a note that Ayden meant to bring up with dear Prex, but the low ceiling meant it would have to hunch in an attempt to get a clear line of fire; something that would be made paradoxically hard by the act of hunching. Still, repeating blasters didn't have to be accurate. They just had to fill the air with blaster fire. And that's exactly what they were doing right then.

The drone of repeaters firing stung loudly as they ran. Ayden looked and looked for something to put between them and found his saving grace as they passed a loading door. Skidding to a halt, Ayden's hands snapped out and curled. Durasteel groaned and creaked ominously as the Force fought to rip the door from its mountings. A single blaster bolt skimmed just above Ayden's right shoulder, bringing a sharp sense of focus to the man and he ripped the door completely out of the wall and turned with it, hearing blaster fire scorch the metal face before he let out a bellowing cry and hurled the door straight down the hallway at the pair of mechs. If the door didn't crush them, it would keep them pinned and/or block their line of sight.

Straightening his hat, Ayden turned and saw where he had just ripped a hole to. As luck would have it, it was a parking garage. "Well, if you ever wanted to get back up in the air, this is probably as best a chance as you'll get before I head up that way myself." Ayden rubbed his shoulder and winced before fixing the woman with a level stare. "I understand this ain't your element down here. Head up to the spaceport." Ayden reached into his jacket and pulled out a small datastick and handed it to her. "When you get up there, find the Prex and have her plug that into a terminal."

 

[Jonathon Patches]

@[member="Cira"] , @[member="Sarge Potteiger"]
"I was just doing a routine check on building security systems," he quipped sarcastically at Sarge, in response to his inquiry, as he added slightly amused, "A bit extreme for my liking..." as he dusted himself off, and then found a blaster muzzle pointed directly at him; a scenario that he was unfortunately, not all to unfamiliar with.

"Try another one?" he asked, as he raised both hands in the air, "Like one of my aliases? Ok... which one would you prefer? Raine Maida? Flynn Rider? Chester Levitt? Jeffery Gallagher?" he asked, rambling off a bunch of names and aliases that probably meant nothing to her. But she asked for another name, he mused to himself.

"As for why you shouldn't shoot me," he said, pausing for a moment, as he slowly lowered both hands and reached down to his bag below in a real slow, methodical manner, so not as to alarm them, until he procured a datapad with a red screen that flashed the following gibberish on it:

"Because I have here what might help you get back your facility," he said, referring to the datapad. "Don't link it to any of the ships systems... it seems to be transferred by a hard connection or network connection; I have severed it's network abilities, but it can still be linked by a hard connection... and I don't think we will ever get control of this ship again if "she" takes it over," he said, referring to the Red Queen.

"But if we are keeping track of reasons WHY you shouldn't shoot me... I'm kind of charming too, if that helps at all," he added with a sheepish grin, hands once again raised in the air.

 

[Hevana Martin]

Once they rose above a certain point the droids seemed to stop following. Likely they lacked the lift capacity to obtain orbit. Sighing she let go of the turret's controls, and relaxed into the chair for now. It was obvious they were going to the space station, and there was little she could do to help at this point. While she would never admit it, she was well aware that Siobhan was a much better pilot. If Hevana were to try and dock, it was far more likely she would create a new airlock in the side than get into the dock.

Once they arrived she grabbed her weapons she had dumped and entered the space station. At this point she was not going to consider anyplace completely safe, especially since she was not entirely sure what was going on. Droids were attacking people, right. But why? If anyone else knew, they had not bothered to inform her.

As Siobhan made her way, Hevana was close behind not joining in on the discussion. She did not know the Prex very well, aside from the fact that she was hot. So she had no idea what Cira was capable of. Still, if she was able to create a thing like Omega Pyre then she had to be pretty good at what she did. If she was not, well Hevana had seen a lot of good people go down in stupid battles before. Once they finally reached the war room, Hevana found a place to store herself. "So... pissed off droid army."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Cira's tough," Siobhan said in an aside to @[member="Hevana Martin"]. Those words should say it at all. Siobhan generally did make such remarks unless she genuinely believed them. Moreover, due to Cira unfortunately being resolutely straight, Siobhan had not been able to get into her pants and thus her judgement had not been influenced by other factors!

"Pissed off droid army that needs some serious killing," Siobhan responded to Hevana. "Guess it's too much to ask that the Sith have been hit as well and Dromund Kaas is a smoking ruin.

No, she was not being petty or callous at all. Of course the Sith might be behind this, in which she hopes the machines turned on them much like the zombies had on Shadow.

"So what's our next move" she asked @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]. "Droids aren't out in space yet, but at the rate they're going they'll take the ports soon. Gotta get our troops together and kill that damn mecha thresher maw before it eats the city."