What the fuck.

It was a lucky break that Maxi was in the med bay; after cooling down a little bit, he chose to head back up to the med bay. Everything he had already cleaned, true, but new shipments of supplies had come in and he had to organize and put them away. The guy just couldn’t catch a break. He was humming to himself as he sorted plastic jars, his bot floating behind him with a few more objects resting on its top. He didn’t see why he shouldn’t use his medical robot as a floating counter. Whatever got things done faster.

And then the explosion hit.

Perhaps if he had been using his powers, he could have foreseen this incident, or simply found a place to hide- but alas, he was not. The blast shook the room, and he dropped the armful of jars he was carrying and hit the floor with a crash. The whole room was shaking, drawers rattling so hard he was sure they’d come off their hinges and crush him and jars he had left on the counter being thrown off onto the ground. He was tense, kept his head to his chest, and only dared to look up once the discord of the explosion died down enough for him to feel safe.

He got up from the rubble with shaky limbs, steadying himself on a still intact counter. He shook his head to clear his mind and assess the damage. Most structures were okay- the beds were shaken but usable, and only one cupboard came off it’s hinges. A chunk, but not all of the supplies were broken, and amongst them there were some solids he could salvage. Overall, not the worst outcome for an explosion. He frowned, looking out the door and into the hallway. Hopefully someone could give him some answers.

Maxi heard Stryker call for him before he saw him. He internally wanted to stick his tongue out and go back in his room, but stopped himself when SAL entered his line of sight with an injured crewmate. Someone he barely knew, only saw once or twice around the ship. He didn’t have a grudge against them, so he sighed and opened the door for SAL to bring her in. He gestured for his own bot to start a scan as he led SAL to put her on the most stable bed in the room. The robot left the room, and his own medbot beeped out a diagnosis and the location of the injury. Hit head, probable concussion, low chance of something being broken. Nothing serious. He snagged an ice pack and gently pressed it to the location of the head injury. She’d need some rest, some painkillers, and maybe something else if she wanted to heal quicker, but be fine nonetheless.

SAL entered the room again just as he finished up the first step with his patient, and he made eye contact with the bot. “Yo, what the fuck happened?”

@Crossfire

"I'm fine," Amy replied as Grayson helped her up. The blast had seriously scared the hell out of her, mainly because after she was knocked off her feet she was completely disoriented for a few moments. The feeling is incomparable to almost anything else.

When Stryker rushed them to the War Room, Amy grew a bit anxious as to their current situation. Orders were being handed out left and right and she couldn't help but feel like a sitting duck. She tried to quietly ask Grayson for her visor but he was no longer next to her.

"I've got to get my visor," she said to Stryker, carefully making her way to the exit to go search for her precious set of eyes. It went flying out of her hand after the blast, and not knowing were it was, or even if it was still operable, was not a feeling she enjoyed.

@Crossfire

As soon as the explosion rocked the ship, Taleste went crashing to the floor, and the box of supplies fell right on top of her leg. She fought free, pumped up by the surge of adrenaline caused by the alarms. After getting to her feet, she inspected her leg. No damage. Hurts like hell, though. It'll probably bruise later. What a great start to her new life, new ship and new crew. She hadn't been here an hour and something had blown up.

She heard the comms ordering her to report in, and she tried to run from the cargo bay to...well, she'll just look around until she found the assembly point. After a few seconds, she realised running was not going to be an option, and limped up the stairs, hand gripped tight on the handrail the whole way up.

"Any whun there?!" she shouted from the cargo bay. "Whut in the cosmos is going on? Where are we even supposed to go?!"

Tibulus simply let out a "On it." as he started working away at the co-pilots chair, going over all of the ships systems, trying to identify any problem. He heard that he had to go and get someone named Taleste, then he was going to go and get the ship back in operation with her help. Did he know who she was? No, not at all. Hopefully he'll find her soon. After he realized that he was doing fuckall to help the situation at the cockpit, so he ran off to go and fetch this girl who he didn't know.

After a quick hop down to the next level, followed by another hop, he ran into the stairwell as a girl called out for anyone. He didn't recall her voice call in when Stryker yelled, so he assumed she was a new crew member. Without much hesitation, the fungal skeleton ran to this girls aid and helped her stand on her feet. "Come on, I've gotcha."

@Silver Carrot@Crossfire

@BKburke (OOC: Let me know if you're cool with the shorthand for Tobi's name. If not, I'll come back later and edit it out! Wrote it in the moment and forgot to check if we'd discussed a different reason/meaning behind the name)

SAL had left behind a residual link, a spare piece of code that would function on his behalf, in the cyberspace. It addressed the new AI as if it were SAL himself.
"I have no history with conflicting directives. I am sorry but I cannot give a valid response. Calculating alternative...... This one's prime unit would suggest conversing with this vessel's Commanding Officer following the current emergency situation"
The residual blipped and whirred as it prepared a response to the second query.
"Before the ship lost power, we had begun transferring your core programs and constructs into a new platform, the Type-1 Operative Battle Interface, or TOBI for short. This unit has just enough residual energy remaining to finalize the transfer, all you need to do is accept"

@Tickout

"Unclear at this time" SAL responded "Initial scans report a burst of psionic energy from the Crew Deck, near the Quarters. This one appears to be the only one injured, I believe she hit her head on something in the immediate aftermath of the blast. Probable concussion. Anything else I can do to help?"

@Xandrya

Grayson stepped back from Arex's room as Stryker's crew arrived on the scene. Amy didn't have her visor and presumably was telling Stryker about that at the time.
"It's alright lass, I'll get it" he leaned in close and whispered as he snuck the gun he had in his waistband over to her hands "Just in case the cyborg goes nuts again. I'll be back in a second"

He headed off to the stairway quickly, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of Amy's gear. After engaging his cyber-implant to boost his vision in the dark of the stairwell, he spotted it, tucked underneath a stair, and miraculously, in one piece. He breathed a sigh of relief before remembering he had an ulterior motive behind volunteering to go. He raced upstairs and slipped into the armory. Stryker didn't seem to be in the habit of carrying around his sidearms off-mission, but Arex sure was, and Grayson wanted an even playing field if the cyborg was hostile, or had just plain cracked. With a pair of BlackHammers tucked into his pants, Grayson raced off back to the Crew Deck.

@PlatinumSkink@Dark Light@Turbowraith@Banana@Silver Carrot@Azereiah

As Stryker was finalizing orders, Ren got back to him with a damage report. After reviewing it, Stryker thanked the AI construct and asked him to send out Renli, Rento, or both to help with repairs.

"Ok everyone, good news" he broadcast his voice throughout the ship "Cosmetically, we've got a bit of work to do to get the ship back in shape, but structurally, we're mostly fine. No hull breaches or anything like that. We had a carnifex manifold crack just above engine 2, and the leakage from that overloaded our main power, so Joe, Benny, you guys get on that. Tibulus, Taleste, gonna need you two to keep an eye on our systems, make sure nothing bottoms out completely, or we could end up in a whole other world of trouble. Stryker out"

He led the few remaining crew members down to just outside what used to be Arex's room, helping Amy a little where she required. Grayson stepped up just as they arrived, and swiftly headed off again. Stryker turned to look at Arex as the man spoke:

"It. It's not possible. Th, not that type. They. They can't have it. Not yet, not them, not that technology........... We're in over over our heads"

"What technology? What are you saying? Arex!" No response, but luckily, Stryker had a plan B.
"Lataniva, can you get inside his head? Find out what the hell happened and what he's talking about? Keep him calm if you can"

Stryker surveyed the damage done to the room, most of the surfaces were burnt to a crisp, the door lay in shards all around his feet. None of this was in Arex's dossier, just a note that he had psionic potential. He'd never say it out loud, but he agreed with Arex in that moment- they were in over their heads.

@Silver Carrot

Lataniva made a mildly amused noise as she was on the way away to help out in the cargo bay, apparently. Did she know it was customary for Dalentian family and siblings to share everything by syncing their minds every evening so that they may all help one another out with any complications any of them might have? Would Taleste be okay with that? While it was exceedingly rare that this practice be used in space, Lataniva hadn’t done it since leaving her home planet, years ago… Nah. Lataniva would keep it to herself, and then used her psionics to help unload heavy things. And then it turned out she and Taleste had been heading in the same direction.

Lataniva gave a brief response to the girl’s statement, briefly looking at her before continuing to unpack stuff. They would likely see a lot of each other in the future.

While Dalentian awareness was aware of a lot of things, it couldn’t predict sudden explosions rocking the ship. Lataniva found herself losing her balance and falling, needing to spin around to meet the wall with her hands and then quickly use her psionics to grab what she could of the baggage that was threatening to impact her lethally. Having neutralized that threat, she grunted and spent a moment to calm down. She was fairly easy to discomfort with this kind of thing. She heard Stryker say he needed her there. Where was that? The Dalentian grunted in mild irritation as she got her limbs moving and headed for the bridge. If not there, then to the War Room. Wherever.

---

@Crossfire

She then hung out with them, looking mildly annoyed in the background as she followed them around until her name got called again, now to examine Arex’s head. Well.

@Dark Light

Lataniva said with an exceedingly dry tone, taking a step forward towards the man, her hand lifted with intention to place against his head, her eyes gazing at him with a focused look that asked if he was going to struggle or not.

@Banana@Crossfire

Taleste was startled at Tibulus' appearance, though not actually scared. "By 'ek, yer a strange whun!" she exclaimed in her thick alien accent, despite being a human. A rather ordinary young woman, on further inspection. Average size, average height, not heavily armed. If she kept her mouth closed, she could have passed for any other civilian. Really made you wonder why she was here.

"So, horrorshow," she quipped, her tone suggesting that nickname might escape her lips again in the future, "Whut's yer deal? Are you a robotic suit with a skele inside ye? Oh, thanks for helping me, by the way. Prob'bly shoulda opened with that. Thanks! I don't think anythin's broken. It jes hurts.

She pauses as there's another anouncement on the comms, and looks puzzled. "Why's he asked me to do that? I don't know nofin about systems. Guess I'll jes be following yer lead."

@PlatinumSkink

Arex turns to Lataniva and with a defeated nod he speaks.
"Alright, let's do this, let's just get it over with. Just try to make it quick."
He sighs nervously with anticipation. With the latest of his achievements he knew he stood very little chance of coercing an alternative outcome.
He closed his eyes as he felt fear rise up inside him. He didn't know what she was going to find in his head. He didn't know what he might find.
Hopefully some truth.

"I'm a skeleton that is also a fungus, and we shock the shit out of things. The name is Tibulus," Tibulus opened as he helped Taleste up the stairs, receiving some form of confirmation that this woman was Taleste from the way she responded to Stryker's call. The funganoid helped the new recruit up the stairs and into the cockpit, sitting her down in a seat near the controls. Once she was situated, Tibulus started to monitor the systems from the pilot's controls, keeping a close eye on everything that was going on.

"It's not hard to learn, 'specially here. Right now we just gotta make sure everything doesn't destroy itself," the funganoid explained as he kept watch and did some modifications to the power levels everywhere, mainly just leveling everything out so there was some form of balance in the ship.

@Silver Carrot@Crossfire

Unspecified. Super helpful. “No, nothin’ you can do to help; you should go work on assessing the damage n' all that good shit. I’ll wait here; if you find anyone else in need of aid, you know where to bring them”. How great, it look like he’d be waiting around for more injured bodies for a while. “And could you come let me know when you figure out the cause of this nonsense? Gotta keep an eye on Miss concussion over here, but knowing what the fuck caused this all would be great.”

@Banana

"Here I thuught I'd seen er'rythin'. So yer a fengus? Anyway, I'm Taleste. I'm not shure yet whut my role on this ship's gunna be but I'm a thief by profession," Taleste answered as they walked. When she was sat down, she breathed a loud, masculine sigh of relief, and started wiggling her hurt leg as she looked over at the console.

After a few seconds, her curiosity got the better of her, and she stood up for a better look, over Tibulus' shoulder. After a few seconds, she sat back down. "Nope. That made no sense to me whutsoever," she remarked, put out. Why had she been told to come here? Or did the captain just want her out of the way? She took a little offence at that, despite knowing that she was no a skilled pilot, or technician, and she was terrible with computers, and not very physically strong. Plus a thief isn't exactly the easiest new crew member to trust. Taleste had learned that lesson many times from many different crews. They all became family after a while, though.

@Silver Carrot
"Eh. Thieves aren't terrible people to know," Tibulus stated, seeming like he had known his fair share of thieves in his life. "I became a pilot after Lykor, as my old job blew up in the explosion." The Lykor incident had blown up a fair amount of other nearby settlements and businesses with it, and Tibulus was one of the few hundred people in those areas that managed to make it out alive... well... maybe 'alive' was a stretch, but he's still here and kicking, which was nice. "Either way, let me make something clear. If you steal a damn thing from me, I'll happily bring you to the extent of a slow death and revive you only to do it all again. Clear?"

A while back...

"...Hey there Joe, we didn't get a chance to properly meet earlier... ...the Alliance has us all dead-to-rights for one reason or another... And I guess you're wrapped up with us now... ...can't guarantee the Alliance won't send someone after you if you leave... ...we definitely need someone with your skills to help keep our engines goin'... if you decide to stay, maybe I can convince the Alliance to pay you for your time... twice the usual going rate for a mechanic, how's that sound?..."

"Fuck." Joe thought. "How'd I get myself into this mess? These people are on death row for chrissakes. Can't even run away from the looks of it. Too risky. Don't want no secret agents on my ass. Not with my record."

Strangely enough, Joe was locked deep in thought. He didn't even bother responding to mister death row commando over there, and even stranger, that was entirely unintentional. Snooping around the deck for a while, he found a quiet corner within the ship to get his shit together, while waiting for it to reach Minos station.-

Wait a second. Minos station? Well, what would you know. A couple of friends from the old days mentioned that name a while back. Hell, some might still be waltzing around that hole. With some luck -"Come on, Lady, don't bail on me now", a whisper escaped his lips- they could still be alive and well, and most importantly, still in possession of their little... Respectable establishments. If Joe were to join the rest of these spacefaring crooks, he may as well have his emergency stash with him.

And so he went. Once the ship landed, he coughed a barely audible "Bebacksoondon'worry" before darting out of it in search of wild geese. The place, besides being the equivalent of hell's gutter, was also a goddamn labyrinth. With only a faint hint of the directions once told to him in mind, his haste and resulting dismay increased exponentially after every corner he skidded around, or ass-ugly alien he bumped into. As he charged deeper and deeper into the station's heart, seemingly out of whatever reach the so-called authorities might have, he began to make sense of his surroundings, and that's when Joe realized...

He was absolutely lost. I mean, what kind of idiot tries to find an obscure joint in a place he's never set foot on before, based on instructions given to him about five or so years ago? He ran his hands through his dubiously clean hair, and spun in place, taking a good, long 360-degree look around the place, compulsively repeating names he barely remembered. "Crump's Emporium, Wicked Wrenches, Fixer's. Crump's Emporium, Wicked Wrenches F-" Joe froze for a second, his eyes wide open. Straight ahead, half-hidden in an alley, or whatever passed as one in a space station, there hung a barely functional trineon sign. "-ixers. Gahdblessya Lady." Joe stuffed his hands in the pockets of these god-awful overalls he had on from when he was still locked up by those freaks at the station, and walked towards the shop with a wide, shit-eating grin and an exaggerated swagger. Seems that today wasn't going to be a bad day after all.

Present Time...

"Jesus fuck!" Joe eloquently exclaimed, still startled from the blast. "What was that?!" Before he could make any sense of the situation, however, the Supertrooper began dispensing orders, aided by the ship's intercoms. Apparently, one of the engines wasn't in great shape. Nothing he couldn't solve. "Carnifex manifold crack..." Gore repeated, more interested than he was annoyed. Breathing a heavy sigh, he unzipped a newly (and mysteriously) acquired gym bag of great proportions, and after ruffling through a bunch of clothes, and some other hardware, he pulled out something he hadn't seen in quite a while. His trusty toolbox. "Been a while, love." He muttered contently, as he slung his bag over his shoulder and made his way towards the lowest level, wondering just how well that Benny guy could handle himself.

@Banana

Taleste's response to this was to chuckle. "Other whun's threats aren't usually as creative as that. I like that one. Don't worry. I never steals from crew. Crew are family, even if A'm still an outsider. Besides, can you think of a stupider thing to do thun to be be trapped in a flying bit of metal with no escape, with a bunch of mercenaries, murderers, cutthroats and a skeleton guy who can 'kill me slowly, bring me back and kill me again', and to steal from them?!"

She was silent for a little longer, before looking over his shoulder again, the only thing she hated more than sitting still for two seconds was being a waste of space. She wanted to help somehow. "Can you explain any part of whut yer doin'?"

{OOC note: Sorry everyone, got a little held up irl. If I forgot to mention anyone, let me know!}

@Xandrya@PlatinumSkink@Dark Light

"Alright" Stryker decided, fairly confident that the situation was contained. He'd be sticking around to keep an eye on things here, but he felt it'd be pretty useless to have 3 of them standing around staring at Lataniva and Arex. He turned to Amy and Grayson, who had just returned carrying Amy's visor and an extra pistol.

"Just in case" the quartermaster muttered as he pressed it into the Captain's hands.
"I've got this" Stryker said "You two get down below and help out with the repairs"

Grayson nodded in response and he handed over Amy's visor.
"Got it, c'mon lass"

@Tickout

"I will return if there is any news" SAL said as he exited med bay. Logically it would make sense for him to proceed to the cargo bay and offer his technical skills to help with the repairs. However, seeing as it was closer, he instead headed in the direction of the cockpit.

@Turbowraith@Banana@Silver Carrot

As Grayson and Amy vanished around the corner, Stryker fished out his datapad to access the ship's PA controls, which were thankfully still active. His voice rang out both in the engine room and cockpit.

"Sensors are showing the temperature in the engine core is rising, anything on your end you can do about that Tibulus? Joe, I've sent a couple more down your way to help out, the sooner we can reset the engine, the sooner we'll be back at full power"

@Crossfire@Silver Carrot
Tibulus was going to answer Taleste before the PA system came online with the voice of Stryker. He asked the funganoid to see if he can lower the temperature of the engine's core, or really just do anything about it. Tibulus could do it, but it wouldn't be super easy to manage. The pilot spoke over the comms system to Stryker "I probably can. Gimme a bit."

Tibulus began fumbling around on the console as he spoke back to Taleste. "Well, I have to lower the temperature of the engine core to keep it from overheating, but to do that I need to dock the power to another system of the ship in order to give the engine a bit of relief." The pilot lowered the power of the ship's weaponry to minimal levels, giving the engine a bit of relief from having so much power. If push comes to shove, Tibulus could bring the power back up and lower another system's power for a short time. "If you don't mind, could you bring up the exterior cameras on the co-pilot's console and keep an eye out for anything dangerous? I need to know so I can bring power back up to the weapons in case there's trouble."

@Crossfire@Banana

"Roger that! Finally, somethin' useful that I'm good at; a lookout!"

Taleste sat down in the co-pilot's seat, and stared at the control for a few seconds. In spite of her lack of useful knowledge about any aspect of working on a ship, Taleste was a very quick and intelligent woman, and it didn't take her long to figure out how to use the camera of this console. She even understood what Tibulus was doing in theory, though couldn't replicate the same results with those alien (to her) controls.

So far, space was clear as far as the scanners could pick up, but Talest knew that when you're dealing with things that travel as fast as the Alliance's interplanetary ships, for example, things could go from clear on the longest range scan to 'oh god, we've for forty battleships up our tail!' in a matter of mere seconds, so Taleste remained vigilant and kept staring at the co-pilot's screen.

Amy tinkered with her visor. The blast delivered some damage as it wasn't working quite as good as before. She silently cursed Arex for yet another misfortune.

"Can you believe this crap? My visor took some damage again." Amy looked at Grayson as she finally gave up trying to get it to work. She didn't want him to spend the rest of the trip fixing whatever piece of armor of hers Arex got his hands on. That wasn't his job, and it would further play into the notion that she was a nuisance more than anything. "But I'll just deal with it, I mean, I can still see you pretty okay for the most part." She grabbed one of the tools from Grayson's back pocket and waved it in front of his face.

"See?"

@Crossfire@Dark Light

Lataniva nodded to Arex as he accepted to be searched. Didn't seem like she'd need to make him calm down, which was good, because that meant she could focus on seeking results faster. In any case.

She placed the hand on his forehead, and kept her eyes focused on him as she worked. Her psionics entered his mind, seeking into his memories, creating a connection to the electrical charges going on inside his brain…

<internal stuff cut>

First her look was the pinnacle of focus, staring at him with a stoic look. Then, she blinked, unmoving but her eyes nonetheless showing alarm, before her eyes focused with an anger as she continued to hold her hand in place while her muscles tensed. Eventually, she relaxed, but still glared at Arex as she did. Then she stood there for a bit, before… she jerked to, a bit, recoiling from nothing. She held her hand in place, but glared at Arex as parts of her body twitched their muscles restlessly, her fingers grasping. Then, finally, she tore her hand away from Arex’s forehead, much more violently than it felt like such an action needed, and she glared at him coldly. Maybe not him, really, but she sure glared at his head for several moments before turning to speak to Stryker.

She told, giving Arex a little glare before looking to Stryker again.

So Lataniva declared, and that’s that.

@Xandrya@PlatinumSkink

"Aye, I'll take a look at it when I get a chance lass" Grayson said as he plucked the tool from her hand and placed it back in his pocket "Let's get down and lend a hand ok?"

"Understood" Stryker said to Lataniva "Well, if he seems stable mentally, cut the connection, then help him up to the med bay. If you fear something else could happen, put him to sleep and drag him to the med bay. If the doc has a problem with it, tell him I just want a scan to make sure there's no more of that explosive shit inside him. I gotta do my part in gettin' the ship back online..."

About a week later.....

"Alright... where do I begin? Well, like any good story, at the beginning"

The Revenant had been fully repaired, and after extensive testing of their systems, the crew was finally back en-route to their destination. Stryker had received a message this morning from the handlers at the Alliance requesting a status update on why the ship had gone dark, and so, he was returning their call while still within range of a transmission capable sat-relay. He spent a few minutes covering the trip to Minos Station before explaining what had happened to the ship. He spoke at length about everything that had gone down on the ship from the moment the explosion killed them dead in the water, all the way up to the second the engines fired up. He recapped their (hopefully temporary) losses. Aside from Matija knocking herself out and being put into an induced coma in order to save her from any long-term neurological damage, the crew had also nearly lost Benny to high-voltage shock from an exposed wire that came into contact with his prosthetic arm. Maxi had been able to re-start his heart, but despite his vitals reading strong, the resident explosives expert hadn't woken up yet. An overloading surge from the first attempt to resuscitate the ship had also knocked Ren and his avatars completely offline. The old machine hadn't quite fully rebooted yet, but Stryker wasn't going to mention the parasitic AI anyway. Next, he rolled through some quick updates on the rest of the crew.

"Grayson and SAL really stepped up. They were really useful in organizing the repairs, and seem to get on well with the rest of the crew, Arex notwithstanding. Hope y'all don't have any rules against fraternization because there seems to be some sparks brewing between Grayson and Ms. Rosseau. They'll deny it of course, but I've caught a few glances being thrown around. SAL's worked tirelessly to salvage useful intel from the Federation Hunter Droid we captured. He's also re-purposed the remaining parts of the attack droids to create a body for an AI entity that's taken to calling itself Tobi. He assures me that it poses no danger to the crew thanks to some deft coding. Tobi's combat efficiency simulations are off the charts. I'm gonna be using him on this next mission to make up for the two missing crew members. I'm attaching the files to this transmission so you'll see what I mean. Arex has stabilized since the incident, doesn't seem to be any lasting damage from the explosion. Definitely doesn't seem to have done much for his personality at any rate. Everyone else is the same, business as usual. And since I have to report on everything, I guess I'll add in that the crew's opening up to one another, after all this time, it really seems like we've begun to work as a team. Alright, I'm done now. Fuck you Dawson"

He ended the message and began to encode it for transmission. The ship was still a few days out from their destination, but even still, in light of the incident, Stryker hadn't had time to even explain to everyone else where they were heading. Maybe today would be the day to rectify that.

An hour or so later, the message had been sent off and Stryker leisurely wandered down to the crew deck to begin preparing breakfast. It was late enough in the 'morning' now that everyone should be awake and getting ready to start the day, so he opened a line to the ship's PA system.

"Hey everyone, been getting some questions since we left Minos about where we're headed that I haven't been able to answer. You all know how busy the last few days have been, but still, I know that question is probably on everyone's mind, so if you want it answered, here's the deal: join me for breakfast in about 20 minutes and I'll tell ya everything. Stryker out"

@BKburke@Tickout@Dark Light@Turbowraith@Banana@Silver Carrot@Azereiah@Rultaos@mackielars