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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 17:26:16 GMT -5
"A base? That would make more sense." Will heard her command to get to the hangar bay and quickly rose from his chair, making his way to the exit.
"Laina, make sure that you track our movements once we get up there. I need you down here in case we find something useful."
"Yes sir."
"Good girl." Finally, someone that actually listened to him for once. He walked outside the entrance to the facility, already seeing that a shuttle was on it's way. Fantastic.
The hangar wasn't as big as he thought it would be, but it served it's purpose. Will walked inside the structure, now waiting for Anna and presumably others to get to the hangar. All the while he thought about the Venia...where were they?
"Doctor Blake?"
"Yes, Laina?"
"The beam is growing in diameter.... point two centimeters per twenty seconds." Wonderful.
"Thank you."
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 17:36:07 GMT -5
Sounded like Will was actually doing what she'd asked him to do for once.
As a credit to Unas, it had only taken him a couple of minutes to commandeer the fastest ship in the bay. "You're a star," Anna said with a grin as she saw the ship.
"It's only big enough for two people," Unas said, "but the flight controls are pretty simple. Set the co-ordinates in and you're pretty much on your way. It'll be there in the hangar bay when you get there." He saluted, "good luck sir."
"Thank you Corporal."
The shuttle touched down, and Anna jogged out, seeing Will. "We have a two man ship, fastest thing on this Island," she said, nodding towards it. "And don't worry, the ship is going to be doing most of the flying." If they put her at the helm... she had no idea what havoc that would wreak.
The ship was already loaded with some supplies etc. just in case, all they had to do was get on board, which Anna did, setting the co-ordinates into the system, before setting herself down in one of the seats in the cockpit. "You ready?"
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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 17:49:34 GMT -5
"As always, my dear. As always."
The jump to lightspeed was a bit...bumpy. Will could tell the ship hadn't been broken into yet. Probably didn't have too many space miles on it. Or the drives were rusty. One or the other. Will got out of the passenger seat stretching slightly as he made his way though the narrow hallway and made the only left you could, which led to a small kitchen/rec area. He was hungry. As he commanded the synthesizer to give him, surprise, a mincemeat pie, the ship chimed softly and spoke:
"Time to destination: two hours." Helio WAS on the Fringe...
Oh no. The Fringe. Will hadn't even thought about the pirates, space vagabonds, and other questionables that littered that sector.
They'd be fine though.
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 17:57:02 GMT -5
"Good to know."
Anna stayed with the main console, watching out of the front view screen to make sure that they didn't come across something that would require them to fly the thing manually. Will disappeared off, and Anna leaned, back, still watching, ready to pounce at the controls if need be.
"Whatever you're eating, it smells good," she called to him. She wasn't hungry for the moment, but if that smell kept wafting through, she was sure she would be soon.
It was about another hour before they entered the Fringe. Anna was even more alert now. Who knew what they could bump into out here.
As they were passing close by one of the planets, something on the screen began to beep. "Will?" She sat up straight, pulling up a window on the screen, "we have company."
A ship appeared on the radar, followed by two smaller dots, speeding towards them quicker than the ship. "Damn it," she said, recognising them as torpedoes, "hold on." She touched the control pad, commanding the ship to start evasive maneuvers.
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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 18:01:09 GMT -5
Will filled that hour with eating the whole pie the synthesizer had been so generous to give him. His mind had bounced around all sorts of ideas as to how a rift could be so expertly controlled. These guys weren't just your normal, run of the mill, gun waving imbeciles: they were intelligent. The intelligent terrorist didn't seem to exist, disappearing after crime stopping technology advanced in the 2200's. Of course, things progressed, things changed.
He was nodding off in his chair when she called to him about company.
"Somehow I knew this would happen." The ship juked to the left, almost throwing Will off of his feet as he rose, making his way(Juke to the right) to the cockpit, sliding into the passenger seat. "This thing wouldn't happen to have a turret?"
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 18:05:48 GMT -5
"It wasn't built for combat," she said, wishing she'd asked for a slightly slower ship with weapons, just in case. But no. "Should have known they'd target us, we're easy pickings." Plus, the technology that the ship was carrying was going to sell so very well on the black market.
The ship weaved from side to side, avoiding the torpedoes as long as it could. "Is there any way to scramble the guidance on those torpedoes? So that it can't track us." They might stand a chance then of getting out of this alive.
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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 18:17:34 GMT -5
Will thought for a moment before reaching over Anna, scanning his hands over the console to find...good. He quickly took off a panel, revealing a circuit board that held several different colored rows of buttons, each row flashing a different color.
"If it goes into manual, just make sure we don't get hit." He looked down the rows, trying to remember the color code...
blue!
He hit the blue buttons from left to right, the ship shuddering slightly as he pressed each button.
"Hang on. This may be a bit nauseating." The ship's interior went completely dark...then a muted OOMPH was heard...and the ship started spiraling downward. Will could only hang on...
"Come on...I know you can do it..."
The ship leveled out, causing Will to collapse on the floor of the cockpit, a small smile on his face.
"I'm too good."
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 18:23:16 GMT -5
Anna held on for dear life as Will tinkered with the circuits, making the ship do all sorts as they tried to evade their attackers. Her stomach, not entirely happy from earlier this morning, churned again, but she managed to keep it in.
They leveled out, and Anna felt herself slam into her seat, hard. She groaned slightly, "what the hell did you just do?" she asked, looking at the scanner. The torpedoes were gone, but they were still being followed. What else would these pirates have up their sleeve?
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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 18:33:52 GMT -5
"It's quite simple, really. You see, each ship has it's own 'emergency' panel that can be used in case things start going nuts. There's a color for each kind of situation, you see. Red is for a fire, green is for an asteroid hit, and the list goes on. Blue allows the ship to condense all the electro-magnetic energy that it's producing and in, other words, produce a "field" that would scramble circuitry nearby. Of course, because this takes all the ship's energy, it takes a few seconds before it can recover, as you just saw. And apparently, the pirates have EM blockers, because they're still on our tail. I can bet you that we just made them mad." He sat up, rubbing his head slightly, saying:
"Alright then, darling. Your turn to shine. Can you get those pirates off our tail?"
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 18:41:36 GMT -5
Anna listened, then repeated all that he had just said in her head before nodding. "How on Earth did you know that?" she said. It sounded like only something a pilot would know. Maybe he'd gone up and had a poke around the pilot's console on the Venia while Luke wasn't looking, or something.
"You better hold on tight, dear," she told him, switching to manual, gripping the controls tightly. The ship jolted a little as it changed, then Anna felt the power of the ship beneath her fingers. This was going to be interesting.
She veered to the right, heading back towards the planet which they had passed. "I'm going to try and sling shot around the planet in order to gain speed," she said, "maybe then we'll lose them." She only hoped that the pirate's ship was too big to do that as well, or to build up as much speed. It would require her following a line, and this became a problem when the ship in tow began firing lasers at them.
"Sod off," she growled, weaving a little to try and throw them off, but to no avail.
There was a loud bang, an explosion as a laser hit the starboard thruster, and the ship immediately began spiralling in towards the planet's surface. Anna did all she could, pulling as hard as she could on the ship's controls to stop the spinning, but there was nothing she could do. They were going to crash...
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Post by togger on Jun 21, 2010 19:03:48 GMT -5
Will felt the vibration of the hit rattle through his body, the emergency lights flashing bright red as the ship began to spiral out of control. There had to be some way to slow the crash! If they hit the ground as fast as they were going, they would be dead in a heartbeat! As the ship began to get into the planet's atmosphere, Will managed to get to the console, hoisting himself up as he looked over the buttons...the lever at the top of the board! He grunted, forcing himself up to the...
He got knocked back by an air pocket.
"Anna! Pull that lever down! Should activate the emergency glide!" Each ship had, because of adverse planetary conditions, a "glide" function, which would essentially cut off the main power and turn the ship into a glider, making it easier to navigate downwards. He hoped Anna could pull it in time!
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 21, 2010 19:09:18 GMT -5
Anna could barely hold onto the controls and reach the lever at the same time. She tried reaching up with one of her hands, but the ship started spiralling even more violently, throwing her back into her seat. She grasped hard onto the controls, then decided - to hell be damned with the controls, if she didn't pull that lever they were dead. Letting go of the controls, she threw herself up and pulled the lever, activating the glide system.
The ship righted itself suddenly, throwing Anna to the side. She hit her head on a console and everything went black.
Anna woke groggily, blind groping around in the dark. The power had gone out but they were on the ground, and not dead. Her head was throbbing like nobody's business though. "Will?" she said, keeping one of her eyes closed. "Are you okay?" Please, dear God, may he be alive.
The ship was already beginning to feel chilly, the cold seeping in from outside. "Will?" she said again, getting worried now, the emotion present in her voice.
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Post by togger on Jun 23, 2010 23:27:23 GMT -5
The glide had worked, but Will knew they were still going to hit pretty hard...and to top it all off, Anna had been knocked out, her body slumped in her chair. Wonderful.
"Oh come off it darling. You'll miss the fun." He tried to move her off the chair in order to get to the controls, but he knew he couldn't pilot...yeah, yeah he could. He could do anything.
That's when the ground came up to meet them.
He stood on the outside of the orphanage, rain pouring down on him furiously. It had been four days since he had graduated from college and the UGAP had contacted him, giving their new engineer a day to say goodbye to Anne. She had been sick for the past few months, not calling him for the past week, which was strange for her. Will walked inside the old building, bumping into two kids fighting over a robot. He looked down, snorting slightly. Kids never changed. Human nature never changed.
"Will?" He could hear her voice floating down from the upper level.
"Coming, coming." Will jogged up the stairs to her room, where she lied, paralyzed to the spot in her bed.
"You are sick then."
"Will?"
"I'm here, Anne."
"Will?" That wasn't Anne's voice...
His eyes were greeted by dim red emergency lighting...the ship. Will could hear someone's voice...calling his name.
Anna.
He groaned, trying to move his left arm...
Which was bent backwards up against the side of the hallway where he was lying.
Wonderful. It had to be broken. At least Anna was alive.
"Anna...hallway."
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Post by ~ ADMIN on Jun 24, 2010 3:38:51 GMT -5
Anna's heart skipped a beat when she heard him reply. At least he was alive. But if he'd been thrown from his chair into the hallway then...
Attempting to sit up, she crashed her head into the bottom of the console and let out a yelp, tears immediately filling her eyes from the shock and the pain. Reaching up to lightly touch her head, she could now feel the blood down the side of her face, matted into her hair. Damn.
"Coming," she managed to say, reaching up to feel her way out from under the console this time, opting to crawl along the floor to where Will was to stop her world from spinning.
"Christ," Anna said when she saw his arm, kneeling down next him, "that doesn't look good, not good at all."
She didn't know whether she dare move him. "Medibox," she said, ignoring her own pain for the moment.
Scrabbling around, she managed to locate a red cross on the wall, and bashed her fist on the wall in order for it to open. Pulling out the medibox, she turned back to Will, and grabbed a shot of painkillers, injecting it into his leg, it would eventually find its way into his blood stream.
"When the painkillers start working, we'll move you," she told him, having forgot to tell him what she was doing. She could barely keep her eyes open or think, probably a concussion.
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Post by togger on Jun 24, 2010 16:19:32 GMT -5
He grimaced slightly when she stabbed him(at least it felt like a stab) with the needle. Skin graft? No, his legs were fine. After a moment, Will felt a surge of warmth flow through his body. Painkillers, then. He hoped they weren't those cheap generic ones that the UGAP usually liked to stow on their ships. Those things worked for two minutes, tops. Then the pain came back. Will knew he had to somehow put his arm back into place if he was going to even think about moving.
"You know...how to put this blasted arm back in place? I don't think it would look very good just dangling to the side like this." He couldn't see very well with the lighting, but he could see something dripping down from what looked like Anna's head. Blood? Probably.
"You need to fix yourself up first, darling. Don't want to be rescued with blood matted in your hair. That wouldn't look good."
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