Nerrone's Rangers IC [Thread 1]

Crank walked into the room, gazed at the holo-screen and crossed his arms. "What kind of trash are you watching?" He raised a metal eyebrow, and had a disgusted look on his face.

Ion's brains were scattered throughout the computer. It was a painful process, having one's memories and operating system ripped from the body and entered into a computer via a slow, wavering flash drive. It would be like dividing one's soul from one's body; though on the plus side, now that he was inside the computer, there would be plenty to keep him busy...whether for good...or for evil.

Grecsh was celebrating uncontrollably. Not only had he been able to keep his tankard of spice, he had also won a purple spice refinery, should Dagon ever inherit one.

Seeing that the action was over, Xol finished his sushi and headed back to his cabin, where he started working on updating his Zeafly with buzzblades and knockout darts. Then he realized that he only had the parts for the buzzblades. He took out a small electronic notepad and jotted himself a note: Purchase knockout darts at next stop.

I noticed the program was running and said to Ion: "So...How are you? Do you like my computer. Make yourself at home." I said, trying to clear up some of Ion's background noise.

Dagon turned to Crank as Grecsh finished his celebrations and the match's highlight reel played on the holo-screen.
"This, Crank?" He said, his wounded ego healing with unnatural speed, "This is not trash! This is The Beautiful Game! Sport of Kings! The gladiatorial arena of the modern age... thing." He hesitated for a moment, momentum temporarily lost, before continuing: "Look, it's really quite simple: You've got your two teams, alright," ...and from here he launched into a seemingly endless monologue about the rules and regulations of the game, while the commentators continued to discuss the highlights of the Earth-Cerelli match in the background.

Crank shook his head, and chuckled slightly. "Sports are meaningless to me. I don't get how you could possibly sit there for hours and watch a bunch of idiots throw a ball around and tackle each other.''

Dagon snorted, "Being a machine must be pretty boring then. I mean, what do you do on long flights — count the atoms in the floor plates? Recharge your batteries? Do calculus in your head?" Dagon sometimes wished he knew what calculus was. He figured it was something to do with squiggly lines and people pretending to be clever by turning letters into numbers.

"I'm not a machine." Said Crank, who had taken offense to what Dagon said. "Machines are programmed, they aren't living." His eyes narrowed. "How dare you call me a machine. I belong to a proud race that far exceeds yours, you filthy repulsive....." Crank stopped, looked down at his feet, then back at Dagon. Crank's facial plating shifted to make a sorrow filled expression. "I'm terribly sorry for my outburst, Dagon." He said, placing his hand on Dagon's shoulder. "That's all Cybertronians have been viewed as; simple machines." Crank sounded incredibly old for his age. He turned around and walked out of the room slowly, hanging his head.

Dagon may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, even if said drawer was otherwise filled with hammers, but he knew when he'd stepped on a land-mine. He resolved to make it up to the Cybertronian somehow; just as soon as he had worked out a variation on his usual 'buy-the-poor-guy-a-drink' strategy that would work on robo— err, artificial life forms.

Ion's "spirit" so to speak drifted through the computer. For him, pictured in his virtual memory, a wide, bright, matrix-esque white room, vast, and open to work. His thoughts were scrambled, ripped apart. Some trace of hatred would surge through the carefully programmed lines that defined his very existence. Ion hesitated to answer the question.

I'm... again, a rapid, burning surge of anger rocketed through him, stopping him short. Summoning enough "willpower", Ion started again, with a firmer resolve to keep calm. I'm...I'm...doing fine...I think. Ion felt a mass of his memory rip out from him, tearing him apart. It was as if one had a terrible, head-splitting headache...the anger burned again. It would be a battle from here on forth...but he was resolved to never quit.

Delta wrote:

Kwa sighed. She would have to talk to Dagon about their recruiting practices.

"I know, Chalen. I'm just trying to—" she paused, thinking for a moment longer.
"...Alright then. If that's what you really want, then I'll give you a month. I'll get Dagon to show you how to work a blaster and I'm sure we can find a use for someone with wings in the field." I can't believe I'm doing this.


"I don't care if he's a robot, the ref's an effing disgrace!" Dagon could be heard shouting in the other room — maybe at Grecsh, maybe at the holo-screen itself, which couldn't shout back.

Chalen could not believe he's getting the chance to prove himself by learning how to use a blaster and some other bits. Chalen saluted to Kwa and said: "Thank you miss Kwa! I shan't let you or others down!" With that he headed out of Kwa's cabin room and went to find Dagon whose still watching his fave sport game. It wasen't hard for Chalen to find Dagon as he could hear his shouting from the hallway. Chalen went into the living room to find Crank and Dagon talking about the sport's results. "Uh would this be bad time or you two finished? I need to talk to Dagon bout something."

Kaaran had gone straight to his room when he got back on board the ship, transferring his equipment to his trunk. The room wasn't much, but he liked it. He took of the panel on his rocket launcher, using his targetter eye, which doubled up as a circuit follower, he quickly found the cause of disturbance, a transistor had come lose in the targetting combination and agreement circuitry, which had shut down the ability for Rockets to be fired, as the targetter had stopped feeding back. He quickly replaced the transistor, and put the rocket launcher away, before Taking some Orgaliite Ufnium-2a, to give him the feeling of calm and invulnberability as though surrounded by walls of rock, the feeling his species crave so much.

He felt the drug taking it's effects, and he went out from his room, Trying to find that guy with the spy fly thing, he liked the sound of him.

Xol walked out of his cabin and promptly bumped into Kaaran. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there." He gave the figure in front of him a glance; he seemed pretty knowledgeable in technology, and Xol knew that if you can tell that from someone's clothing, that person was likely someone he wanted to know.

((Ionjii, I'm the guy with the spy fly thing, by the way. ))

Kaaran walked straight into the alien in front of him, who greeted him politely saying "Oh sorry I didn't see you there"
This alien's coolheadedness despite having just bumped into what can only be described as a brutish and slightly imposing creature, despite their small height Leopods are strangely captivating to the Eye, but Kaaran did not present himself nicely, giving him a begrudging respect to the alien. Despite his speculations he continued, glancing to the name on the cabin door which read "Xol"

"You're Xol i guess, I like your spyfly, I'd love to see it sometime." He said in an unusually polite manner, surprising himself.

Celdryc responded to Quarks message "Engines fixed, and the hull is fine." He returned to work on his project. "Im workin on something for the ship now." He returned to his work.

"I'm free at the moment," Dagon said to Chalen, now that Crank had made his exit, "Let me guess... Kwa wanted me to show you how to use one of these things?" He pulled out his pistol, a chunky metal thing with no frills and quite a wide barrel for a single-handed weapon.

He knew Kwa well enough to see what she was thinking, calling Chalen for one of her Talks. He'd sat in on a Talk once — Dagon had known she could be cold, but it was only then he had realised that it was in private that she really got her claws out. The fact that Chalen hadn't just been thrown straight out the airlock said something in itself.

He removed the weapon's clip and handed his pistol to Chalen. "Now, to cock it you just do this..." Thus began a brief demonstration of the fire-arm's workings. He covered everything he could think of, but obviously target practice would have to wait until they were on-planet somewhere.


Kwa, meanwhile, took her field computer and began plugging it into the holo-screen, tinkering with settings and scrolling through menus in a well-known battle to make two electronic devices talk to each-other properly. She was almost ready to start the next briefing.

"Okay, Ion, I'm gonna put you back into this thumb-drive now." I re-loaded the info and left my room. "Celdryc" I said over the comm. "I'm on my way. It shouldn't be long before I can fix Ion." I said.

Then I called Xol. "Hey. Pilot dude, we're ready to go to warp. Set a course to a near by planet with the lowest chance of being detected. Make sure it's got a lot of markets!" I ordered.

Xol nodded at Kaaran. "I could show it to you some time, but as of the moment it is in several pieces. I'm planning on a few upgrades soon, but right now..."

Xol stopped as Quark yelled through the ship.

"Hey. Pilot dude, we're ready to go to warp. Set a course to a near by planet with the lowest chance of being detected. Make sure it's got a lot of markets!"

Xol rolled his eye and yelled back, "First off, I am not a pilot dude as you say, I am an experienced technician and pilot. Second, how about you let Kwa make the decisions about where we land." He then turned from Kaaran and headed to the cockpit. He started a few procedures with the engines and opened up his planet scanner.

"Kwa, anywhere particular you want us to go?" Xol called through the comms. He hoped that they would be going to a civilized planet with plenty of room to shop for parts.

"I look forward to it!" Kaaran called after the receding figure of Xol. He seemed nice enough Kaaran thought. He headed back to his cabin deciding to see if he could remake an anti-shield missile.

As he arrived at his room, and carefully disassembled a Dispersion rocket, he decided it was time for an entirely new kind of rocket. He disentangled the net of Wire snare that made up his dispersion missiles, and replaced it with a Diamond tip, backed up with a canister of mercury and water, and a cryo blast canister. The hope was the tip would pierce any solid and thickarmour, before the mecury and water canister would seep into any cracks created, and into the vehicle, then the cryo pulse would detonate, where the mercury would be inside the vehicle, and the water would freeze expanding heavily cracking the armour, rupturing it.

He looked around for a timing chip but found he was out of parts. completely, he had literally nothing left. This rocket would have to wait.

He lay down on his bed waiting for something to do.

[quote="Delta"]"I'm free at the moment," Dagon said to Chalen, now that Crank had made his exit, "Let me guess... Kwa wanted me to show you how to use one of these things?" He pulled out his pistol, a chunky metal thing with no frills and quite a wide barrel for a single-handed weapon.

He knew Kwa well enough to see what she was thinking, calling Chalen for one of her Talks. He'd sat in on a Talk once — Dagon had known she could be cold, but it was only then he had realised that it was in private that she really got her claws out. The fact that Chalen hadn't just been thrown straight out the airlock said something in itself.

He removed the weapon's clip and handed his pistol to Chalen. "Now, to cock it you just do this..." Thus began a brief demonstration of the fire-arm's workings. He covered everything he could think of, but obviously target practice would have to wait until they were on-planet somewhere.
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Chalen took hold of the pistol and tried to held it right. Once he found a comfortable grip to hold it, he began to pratice shooting at pretend enemies without actually firing a real shot. "Thanks for showing Chalen how to hold pistol and fire right. But where are going to practice shooting targets?"

"Whenever we find a spot with plenty of space where no-one will think twice if we fire off a few test shots," Dagon replied. "You can keep that pistol for now, until we find something more suited to you."


In the living area, Kwa finally finished hooking up her field computer to the holo-screen, and presently a trio of planets materialised in the air at her side, surrounded by reams of glowing statistics: average local temperature, gravity, weather patterns, everything.

"Alright everyone," She called, "Our current location places three different populated star systems at roughly equal distances from us. They'll all have facilities that we need: medicine, markets and, most importantly, jobs — we'll have to choose."

"Let's start with Tareen," she flicked her wrist, and the display zoomed in on the first of the worlds — a sphere covered in oceans and archipelagos, like bite-sized continents, "Densely populated T3 world, cities built on land reclaimed from the sea or giant metal platforms right above the water. Very high-class, mostly, they've got whatever you want if you're willing to pay a high price for it. Not much in the way of employment, but I've got a few contacts out there and if something comes through then we shan't go hungry for a fair while, I'll bet."

Another wrist flick and the display shifted along to a world of red desert, clear skies and craters: "Next up is Ariid: a T1.5 world, it's seen better days. Most of the population exists in huge mobile cities flying over their blasted wasteland of a landscape. There's usually enough intrigue going on to keep us busy and we should have plenty of opportunities to trade — they're particularly big on engineering, since it's all that stops them from nose-diving into the dirt. Not a bad place, if you don't mind the noise."

"Last on the list is Drall," The final world was a globe of deep green, swathes of its surface covered by thick clouds, "Unpopulated T2. 'Unpopulated', that is, by the reckoning of all authorities — its equatorial swamps actually host a carefully concealed and, if I may say, rather extensive rogue colony. It's a haven for all manner of outlaws, pirates and back-street traders, good place to lie low so long as you don't spill anyone's drink in the wrong tavern. Needless to say, a melting pot of such... variety will have all sorts of work going, though the pay may not be as good in many cases."

"It's over to you, people — we need to decide where we need to go next the most."

"I vote for Ariid!" Xol yelled from the cockpit. It sounded like it had plenty of shopping opportunities, as well as a few low-level jobs. The perfect combination. He hoped Quark, Celdryc, and Kaaran would agree with him, what with them all needing to get electronic supplies.

Louisa was hanging tight to an unshielded portion of the bottom of the Lacuna's hull, thinking about what it was that brought her here:

[memory]
It was mostly her dyslexia that did this. After landing in docking bay 21 of the Pondora (as opposed to 12 as she was supposed to to meet in the mess hall), She spent a good three kilosegments searching for the Rangers and where they were supposed to be meeting. She found several traces of activity throughout the ship, such as a dead guard near a medical chamber, and a scorched room full of dead shock troopers, but couldn't find Kwa or her group.

Eventually arriving in a different docking bay, Louisa saw a small, beat-up vessel called the Lacuna departing. Breaking into a full-out sprint, she still couldn't get onto the ship and so jumped, latching herself onto anything she could. After a few burnt fingers from the shields and several near-death situations, she managed to find a secure hold on a railing of the folded docking ramp. Climbing along the bottom of the ship, she arrived where she is now.
[/memory]

Even with her robotic fingers, holding on was becoming a challenge.

I need an airlock, hatch, vent, hole in the insulation, toilet, SOMETHING! Thought Louisa desperately.

Searching around frantically, she spotted a broken air vent, with a robot-shaped hole she could probably get through. It was worth a shot.

She managed to crawl along to the vent and wriggle in. THUD! The sound of her heavily-armored body hitting the inside of the vent.

With the acoustics in these things, the whole ship was bound to hear that. Let's just hope I'm in the right rocket, She thought as she began to squirm through the duct.

((Sorry about not posting earlier, I simply didn't have enough time to make a very big and thought-out post. This my way of saying she was on the Pondora with everyone else, without simply destroying everyone else's posts.))

Crycell said "Tareen for me," while he was making something to eat. He hoped someone would agree with him because Talvox needed medical attention.

Chalen had a hard time choosing where to go. He wants to do target shooting on Drall but he is afraid they might attract attention but he's willing to risk it. Trading on Ariid would be not a bad idea as he could get cheap light armour for his body. Then there's Tareen where jobs could be vital, get some good light armour but it will be pricey and best medical supplies. Chalen wants his teammate to recover quick and give him his lightning blade back which was still attached to his arm. He has made his decsion. "Chalen go with Tareen cause I think that be important to all of us."