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Post by Silas Sedgewick on Feb 16, 2015 21:57:29 GMT -5
"Narid have good hearing, like anyone else, Charlie," she grunted, holstering one pistol to free up a hand. "We can't high-tail it. The facility has been breached, so we need to figure out who did it, why, and what is missing," she explained, stooping over the body as she spoke. She used the barrel of the gun to shift his clothing around, checking the Narid for anything that might gleam who he was or what he had done since coming here.
"Someone interrogate one of the scientists. I don't think it's deadlines that have them so spooked." She made no effort to stand from her search, clearly set on poking about the alien body.
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Post by The Tired God on Feb 16, 2015 21:59:25 GMT -5
After all was said and done, the scientists took to hiding under their desks, only two of them making an actual break for the elevator, which still hadn't arrived by the time Silas issued her orders. If it was anything like their trip down, it would still be a bit before it finally arrived, allowing Cate and Charlie to try and calm them down if they wanted to.
Otherwise, no one made any attempts to explain what was going on, they simply stuck to cowering under their work stations, afraid they might be next on the chopping block.
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Post by Cate Baxter on Feb 16, 2015 23:35:32 GMT -5
Cate nodded, making her way out of the room and attempting to take Charlie with her. It was probably best not to keep the girl stuck with a dead body. Flashing her best smile at one of the remaining scientists, honestly the ones at the elevator were probably too spooked to be much help, Cate raised her voice to better be heard.
"So hi there, none of you know me but my name is Cate. I'm here on rather important business for Soline." She moved to casually lean against a nearby cubicle wall. "I'm sure she'd really appreciate anyone who'd be able to help me figure out just what's goin' on here an' why we have at least one twitchy Narid with a gun. She's your boss as much as mine, an' I'll be sure to put in a good word to anyone who's willin' to help me get this little mess sorted out." Another smile followed as she waited to see if any would respond.
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Post by Charlie Willow on Feb 17, 2015 20:51:21 GMT -5
Charlie grumbled a series of embarrassed noises toward Silas, only the words, "I thought I was whispering," were even slightly coherent. She pulled in a deep breath, sighed softly, and her shaking quickly slowed. As Cate collected her, it stopped entirely, focusing on the task at hand. She smiled.
"And I'm Charlie! We're here to help, and would really appreciate anyone brave enough to tell us what's happened here." She made a point to keep her eyes moving around and her mouth closed after that. No more screw-ups for this mission, Charlie, nuh-uh.
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Post by The Tired God on Feb 17, 2015 23:48:06 GMT -5
Of the trembling scientists, one man in thick-rimmed glasses steeled himself enough to start to poke out from under his desk. "H-h-hello," he stammered, bowing his head and wiping his hands off on his pants, trying to look somewhat presentable. Tears had stained his cheeks, and snot was dribbling from his nose, giving him a much more terrified look than he likely wanted to present. To his credit, his pants weren't soiled, so he had that going for him at least.
"We-- . . . we were told not to . . . say anything when you arrived. Th-they boarded . . . and took over. P-pirates, I think. The . . . the Narid was talking to someone named Red God over a communicator? At least I think it was one, it looked . . . it was Narid tech," he shrugged. If it was a communicator, it would have to be of Narid-make to pierce the energy storm near the station, otherwise no communications would be able to get out of the local area.
Cate would have heard of this Red God, only due to her time working for Soline. All she would know was that he was a competitor, and dealt with a lot of Narid. The name might feel vaguely familiar to Charlie, in the same way that Soline might. There, in the back of her head, but hard to place.
"There's still more on the station," he added, pushing his glasses up with the palm of his hand, then wiping the snot from his upperlip with his sleeve. "They've likely made copies of the data by now, but they still haven't been picked up by their transport. They . . . docked with us when the beacon was tripped, and haven't left yet. We were told to keep working . . . though to be honest I don't even know what we're working on," he admitted, gesturing to the terminal that served as his station. "We all get bits of separate data to work on and decrypt, and it all gets compiled together by a computer, which can only be accessed by the head researchers."
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Post by Cate Baxter on Feb 18, 2015 9:18:50 GMT -5
Cate rubbed at her nose as she thought. "Righ'. Pirates. Alrigh'. I'm gonna go an' see what our other uh... associate thinks about all this. We'll get it sorted out for ya though. Actually, Charlie you wanna talk to Si? See what sorta plan she can cook up?"
Regardless of Charlie's answer, Cate turned back to the scientist. "You guys have somewhere safe t' go, aye? A panic room or somethin'? If so you should all head there til this blows over. We'll get it fixed and sorted no problem. We wouldn't have been sent here if we couldn't get the job down, right? Soline's too smart for that. You just tell us where the pirates are an' we'll make a plan. You'll see."
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Post by Charlie Willow on Feb 18, 2015 15:14:32 GMT -5
Charlie nodded quickly, giving Cate a sloppy salute(and smacking herself in the nose in the process) before bounding back to Silas and their dead tour guide.
"Si! Silas! We got some answers!" She stopped dead, inches from the taller xeno specialist, and repeated the same sloppy salute. Without missing a beat, she rattled off what could only be described as projectile word vomit, near-verbatim of what the scientist said about the pirates, Red God, and the storm-piercing communicator before she ran out of breath.
"He said there's more, too." Charlie grabbed the hem of her jacket as she said that, then inched the hand around the grip of her pistol on her belt. "Last thing, only the head researchers know what's even going on." She finished. "What's the plan?"
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Post by Silas Sedgewick on Feb 19, 2015 19:12:58 GMT -5
Silas was in the process of stripping the Narid of his coat by the time Charlie arrived. Once she finished filling her in, the coat was cast aside and Silas was busy prodding at the deceased, feeling around the exoskeleton with the barrel of her gun, not wanting to get her hands messy with his off-color blood.
"Pirates stealing top secret information, lovely," she grunted, pushing herself up to her feet and holstering her pistol in the same motion. "All right, we need to get all the scientists down here, it's the most secure room at this point. No sense in moving these guys up with us to any side room or security room. Pirates are likely watching that anyway, but not down here," she went on. "If they were, they'd be down here already."
She stepped over the dead body and started towards Cate. "Start getting these folks towards the back. There's a coat they can throw over the pirate if they want," she ordered. "You two, by the elevator, calm down or be put down!" she barked, growing rather violent there. "Back of the room, people. Anyone who tries to leave before this mess is done is getting worse than a bad report back to Soline."
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Post by The Tired God on Feb 19, 2015 19:18:58 GMT -5
The snot-sleeved scientist nodded meekly at Cate. "There's a safe room, but I'm sure it's being watched. Besides, you need clearance to access it, and none of us have it," he explained, just before Silas started barking orders. He, along with a few others, immediately headed for the office, past the shattered glass, apparently used to taking orders without objection.
The two scrambling for the elevator also complied, but in a much less orderly fashion as they tripped over one another to get to the office. Shortly after the elevator arrived with a soft, pleasant ding, not packing angry pirates or more scientists. What had happened down here was known only to them.
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Post by Cate Baxter on Feb 20, 2015 11:40:53 GMT -5
Cate gave a sigh as Silas came out of the office and began barking out at everyone. "...So much for bein' nice. Si, ya know we're all on the same side here, aye? No need to go yellin' like that."
She tried to hold the scientist she'd been talking to for another moment before he could file off with the others, "Wait wait wait. The pirates, do ya know where they're all holin' up? Like a specific room or anythin'? We can't just go walkin' through this station blindly, don't have the time for that an' I don't fancy gettin' shot because I don't know there's pirates two rooms over."
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Post by Charlie Willow on Feb 20, 2015 14:05:59 GMT -5
Charlie had to exert quite the effort to stand (mostly) still and calm. She chewed the inside of her cheek, following behind Silas, and cringing as she shouted.
"Maybe we can get the drop on them, instead? Are there any maintenance shafts around?" She finally blurted, unable to stay quiet for more than thirty whole seconds.
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Post by The Tired God on Feb 22, 2015 14:37:40 GMT -5
The scientist stopped mid-stride at Cate's request, then shook his head as he worked out a reply. "I'm afraid I don't know. I don't have access or clearance to most of the station," he admitted, clearly one of the lower ranking researchers aboard the station. "You could try the recreation quarters, near the center of the station," he meekly suggested, then returned to scurrying back to the office, with the rest of the startled bunch.
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Post by Silas Sedgewick on Feb 22, 2015 16:48:19 GMT -5
Silas shrugged Cate's way. "I'm yelling to be heard. This is field work, and their lives are in our hands. I'd rather have them dislike me and live than be peachy and run the risk of dying," she explained, drawing a pistol and aiming it at a computer. Without warning she blasted the front panel off of the machine and fell to the ground beside it, resting on her shoulder as she nudged into the large computer's guts.
"Charlie! Bring that smart brain of yours over here," she called out, ripping wires out of sockets and plugs, rearranging things in the same manner a Narid might, with the same efficiency as well. "Take this pad and see about routing the security feeds over to it. Get us some eyes, mm?"
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Post by Charlie Willow on Feb 23, 2015 12:06:42 GMT -5
Yet another sloppy salute preceded Charlie's scramble over beside Silas. As she dropped to her knees, she attached what looked like a custom datapad of her on through her "2 Share" flap and onto her right elbow. "Gimmegimmegimme." She mumbled, snatching the other pad from Silas and laying it on the ground.
"Should only take a few minutes. The station's encryption is only slightly different from standard, maybe a little fancier aaaand..." A little 'error' beep pipped from her own pad. "Shi-- dangit." She muttered. Her hands flew back and forth between the two holo keyboards, her mouth muttering the steps and the occasional swear. "Two more minutes. Had to roll out the big guns." She sniffled, running a slicing catch-all on her own pad. "I gotta make some bigger guns."
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Post by Cate Baxter on Feb 23, 2015 22:27:17 GMT -5
Well then. With the scientists corralled and no further lead for her to pursue Cate did the only thing left to her. She stole a chair. Not one of the crappy scientist chairs, no she went back to the office the Narid had lead them to and wheeled the chair out from behind the desk, carefully navigating the corpse as she did. She then sat in it. This was all out of her scope and she didn't see anything else to do that could be useful.
So she sat in a stolen chair and waited.
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