<GM to players:> You all duck for cover as another air skimmer passes
over on patrol. The air patrols are quite dense, but on the ground, things
seem to be more quiet. The high-pitched whine drops in tone as the air
patroller zooms by...
Mindwave ducks and whispers to Bruno, "Are you ready?"
Mindwave looks around, then turns to Silas, "I think now seems like
a good time..."
Silas nods and looks to Bruno and Brenna. He says, "Whenever you two
are ready. We'll keep an eye on things down here."
Mindwave concentrates for a second, then reaches out with her mind,
and lifts Brenna and Bruno into the air.
Bruno floats up at Mindwave's control. He looks around, then
ducks low
The two float up toward the holding tank column, moving quickly to
get under cover before the next air skimmer makes its flyby and discovers
them. The two arrive and are able to get cover underneath one of
the tanks just as the other skimmer makes its flyby.
Brenna looks at Bruno, then as soon as the skimmer disappears out of
sight, she motions to the maintenance hatch...
Mindwave whews, "That was too close... but they are there."
Silas nods grimly, then motions his men to spread out and take up watch
positions under cover.
Bruno scurries over to the hatch and takes a look around before trying
to open it.
Brenna is also keeping her eyes open for anything 'unfriendly.'
She holds her rifle ready, just in case, but for the moment, it appears
the coast is clear.
Mindwave looks around for any more air skimmers...
Bruno opens the hatch slowly and peers in, using the widget as a flashlight
to pierce into what he imagines will be a very dark place.
The hatch is popped off with very little trouble. Looking in,
there is a small, dark tunnel leading back into the column itself.
Shining a light into the tunnel does little except to show that it goes
back quite some distance. Brenna takes a quick look in then signals
thumbs-up to Mindwave and the group below...
Mindwave says, "Looks like they have made it, Silas...."
Bruno pops back up and leans over the edge, making the quintessential
spy call... the bird call... ala "The Three Amigos" "Youtwo! Youtwo! Youtwo!"
It sounds like a very badly wounded bird, one would suppose...
Mindwave puts her hand up to her head, "Oh, Dear Lord..."
Mindwave makes a motion with her arms and says to herself, "Just get
in there..."
Brenna disappears into the darkness of the tunnel, a light on her blaster
rifle illuminating the way. She crawls about fifty yards back into
the tunnel, then comes to a junction. She looks around, then radios
back, "Looks like it's clear for a while. I can see some lights up
ahead here, but I don't hear anything..."
Mindwave radios back to Brenna, "I will take that as a good sign, keep
moving.."
Bruno drops into the hatch behind Brenna, ducking and rolling just
like in the spy movies! "Green fox to bre'er rabbit. The mouse
is in the hole! The mouse is in the hole!" he hisses into his radio.
He then puts his radio away again and doesn't mess with it for a while.
From here on out he should be a little more careful. He nods to Brenna,
whispering, "Do we wait for backup or keep going?"
Brenna replies to Mindwave's message, "Understood." and continues down
the tunnel toward the lights. Another few yards up the tunnel, and
there is a grate over the tunnel, and on the other side, a room full of
controls and conduits. Brenna says to Bruno, "Looks like this is
our stop, whouldn't you say?"
Bruno nods. Anyone who bothered looking would notice that the
monocle, which is all shiny and reflective and stuff has been replaced
by an eyepatch. He kneels in one place and just listens. Odds
are nothing living should be moving down there, but it pays to be cautious.
Peering down into the room, there appears to be something down there...
some sort of maintenance droid or something. So far it seems blissfully
unaware of Bruno and Brenna's presence, and goes about its business, poking
and prodding various controls.
Brenna looks over at Bruno and hefts her blaster silently, a questioning
look on her face. She whispers, "Do you have any bright ideas or
should we just blast the thing?"
Bruno hrrrms, "Actually... it depends on what sort of sensors that
thing has. If it's visual only I can create an illusion that everything's
normal..." he whispers.
Brenna nods and says, "Sounds good. And if it starts acting suspicious,
then we'll blast it."
The maintenance droid continues about its business as though nothing
were wrong.
Bruno creates an audio/visual illusion of everything being okay. He
and Brenna slide down out of the vent, quietly. he heads for the exit,
then waits there.
Brenna pops the grate off the end of the tunnel and drops down into
the chamber. She steps out of the droid's way as it continues poking controls
Brenna looks around quickly, and then radios, "Warlord, we're clear.
You may want to come in here and give us a hand."
Brenna motions Bruno toward the controls, saying, "See if you can figure
out how to plug into that thing..." She continues to keep a close
eye on the maintenance droid, as well as the other few access points to
this chamber.
Bruno keeps the illusion up, even if noone else is coming in, to disguise
himself and Brenna. Scratching his chin he hrrmmms. Access
terminals for these things are gonna be for robots almost exclusively he
supposes, so they'd be built at robot height. Most of these robots
on this world seem to be short ones on tracks or rollers, not tall humanoids,
so he starts looking a little lower than most people would think to look.
The Maintenance droid unplugs itself from a jack in one of the controls.
That appears to be the input for the robots.
Bruno looks around for a similar jack anywhere in the room?
<OOC> Empress says, "There are many of them, one in each panel. With a little bit of modification, the Widget should be able to interface with those jacks."
Bruno nods and motions to Brenna to step out into an access corridor
with him.
Brenna follows Bruno, keeping an eye on the surroundings. The little
maintenance droid continues as though nothing is wrong.
Bruno whispers, "You might want to signal Mindwave and the others that
we could be a while. I'm gonna have to McGuyver up an interface.
It's sorta delicate work, but I think I have everything I need for
it."
Brenna nods and radios the message back to Mindwave
<OOC> Empress says, "Bruno, roll inventor"
Bruno rolls 3 dice and gets: 2 3 3
Body: 3
Stun: 8
<OOC> Bruno says, "I've got it at 17-"
Mindwave smiles when she hears Brenna say "McGuyver", sure in the knowledge
Brenna has no idea what it means "Acknowledged."
In pretty much no time flat, Bruno has rigged up a jack to plug into
the input port on the control panel. Brenna nods to him and says,
"Let's do this and get out of here."
Mindwave turns to Silas, "I think as long as they are inside, and we
can remain out of sight out here, they should have all the time they need..."
Silas nods, saying, "Yeah, as long as nothing up there figures out
what we're doing. Once they jack in, we'll know for sure."
Bruno nods and interfaces with the system. He's done all he can
to get the widget acclimated to the programming languages on this planet,
but it's sure to be slow going. "Okay computer... I'm gonna show you my
kung-fu is the best." He cracks his knuckles and enters into the
system.
<OOC> Empress says, "Roll programming"
Bruno rolls 3 dice and gets: 4 1 5
Body: 2
Stun: 10
<OOC> Bruno says, "I've got it at 15-"
The readout on the widget goes crazy as Bruno plugs it in, but he quickly
gets things under control. Tons of data flows across the display...
everything from simple functions to what appears to be requests for decisions
and analysis to various nodes. It's difficult to decipher it all,
though...
Bruno erks and reads as it goes by. "Wow... I don't think this
thing knows about files... it's gotten lazy or something."
<OOC> Empress says to Bruno, "You're pretty sure that the widget isn't going to be able to keep up, no matter what modifications you do to it. There's going to have to be a faster way to interface..."
Bruno nods and looks at Brenna. "I think we're gonna have to scratch
this for today. My system can't handle the flow of data. I've
got an idea, but it'll take time to work up... but at least we know we
can get in and out fo here..."
Brenna asks, "What's your idea? We got in here this time, but
if we're discovered before we get back to the safety of the Preserve, there's
no guarantee that we'll be able to get back here again..."
Bruno sighs, and looks around, "Two different ideas. One... we
hijack that robot and turn it into our data terminal... but that's risky.
The other idea would be to rig up a sensor harness for myself liek the
computer uses for it's subjects."
Brenna says, "Wait, why a harness? Mindwave can connect with
their minds, can't she?"
Brenna says, "That would save a lot of time and work..."
Bruno nods, "Mmm, yeah, but would it really help with processing the
data, finding what we want, hooking it up? I mean, I don't know.
If it would, I'm all for it."
Brenna radios back, "Warlord, the Doctor can jack in, but his terminal
can't process the data fast enough. Do you think there's anything
you could do?"
Mindwave radios back, "I could try to telepathically connect... I can
be there in a few minutes..."
Brenna replies, "Acknowledged, Warlord. Your path should be clear
all the way in. Keep an eye open for maintenance droids though."
Bruno goes back to get her then...
To be Continued...