<> <> <> <> <> "Someone's got to ask it. What are we gonna do?" <> (THE COUNCIL OF CHAINS) (or perhaps jumps) * Zeke is there! His birdsect is eyeing Lenin warily. We gotta do something. Hell if I know what, though. * Hestia leans back in her chair. "Well... what are our assets?" * Zeke states, "It is difficult to discern what could be done to protect Mars. There are several angles that can be pursued, based on previously knowledge." He looks over at Hestia. I'm gonna go with the birdthings being a bunch of assholes and they're not just going to land and eat smores, or something. <> "Us. Our ships. Your .... artichoke? Whatever ordinance we were carrying when we fled, which isn't much." <> "And a ton of souvenirs." * Tomas scans the "souvenirs" that are among our assets. (ELABORATE.) (AH, IT'S GREG!) (Anything with a lemniscate?) <> (Giving us 36 Sol-Hours.) (At most.) <> * Zeke is silent a moment as he looks over the souveniers, but he continues his thought, saying, "The Duekti put up interdiction devices in a predictable pattern when approaching our system. It is, as of yet, unclear why, but protecting themselves seems the most likely reason." * Tomas stands up slowly as the others talk and moves to look more closely at the octophyte <> <> <> "If you are advocating a fishing expedition, my friend, I must remind you that we have very little time before they land their ships." * Tomas tries to interrupt Don Fernando, but he just talks too damn fast, "Where'd this plant come from? The shape is odd." That is why it is difficult. <> "We picked that up on a planet last week. Weird place, too, with ruins and everything." <> (The jig is up!) * Zeke looks over at Tomas and his fruit. "Many things are odd... ah, I see." <> "What? It's not like secrets matter now, right?" What were these ruins like? <> "All plant-like. Nothing around at all, but these weird light-flower things still worked. Barely any metal, that we saw, except for a couple doors that we guess were locked." Light flowers? Really? That's pretty cool. "Not too far out, either... but that's kind of pointless now, right? There wasn't anything there we could use. Hell, there weren't even any ships." Should have looked harder. * Zeke is silent through this, then nods and states, "Yes, that planet is possibly of interest." <> * Hestia pinches the bridge of her nose. "Right, I'm not normally Miss Full Disclosure but I think a racial genocide danger overrides my natural desire to tell nosy people to fuck off." * Kyle sighs in relief. Well, at least she's not going to be all super-sekrit regarding this. For starters, the sleythin have data about almost every planet we could conceive of jumping to, and they were hiding it from us because of some stupid prophecy. <> "A prophecy. From the sleythin?" I don't know where the prophecy came from, but it says the race that opened the Gate will bring destruction on the galaxy, or something. * Hestia crosses her legs and sighs. "Anyhow, that data somehow got out to... certain groups who've been manipulating chainjumpers behind the scenes for their own ends. Us, you," she says, nodding her head at Don Fernando and the crew of the Supernova, "and probably everyone else for all we know." <> "Hey, yeah, like that Mr. Jackson guy, right?" Yeah, like him. * Hestia nods once. "Among... others, but that's not the important point. The issue is that the people giving us our jobs were using the sleythin's data as a guide, which is why we ran into so many key finds. Two of which were the homeworlds of species long gone, the troylae, and through them the guuub.' <> "The whowhat now?" * Hestia looks at Leo and Mika. "Did you run into little furry... dancing... things on that planet?" <> "Largest thing we saw were birds." ("Oh. Then there's no hope. Sorry.") (*heads outside, self-destructs the Breaker*) * Zeke frowns to himself and his birdsect looks away from Lenin a moment, then nods slightly and looks back to Lenin. His face goes back to an expressionless state. (Also i'm not playing exposition fairy all night, you people were here for this stuff too.) (Not even birds are spared from Zeke's sexy scrutiny.) * Tomas gestures at the octophyte, "Did you see many things shaped like this? The guub seemed to have some hangup with figure 8s." * Zeke speaks up to state, "Tomas, will you bring the plant to Kyle, please, that he can check it for similarities?" <> "Ow! Yeah, those things were all over." * Tomas's eyes widen a little, "oh. I see what you mean, Z." He picks up the plant and takes it over to Kyle for analysis. (GET YO CHECK ON) * Hestia inclines her head outside, in the direction of the Breaker. "The guuub gave us the artichoke, and the planet you described sounds like their homeworld, right down to their plant-integrated technology. Of course, if all a planet of... sort-of-living guuub could give us was the artichoke, I don't know a planet with no survivors will help." * Kyle checks it against the doohickey they found earlier. Heck, is there any sort of mechanical or locking mechanism with them? Yeah, but we kinda know what to look for too. We might be able to find more of them, or more similar tech. But I don't know how much that helps us. We're still severely outgunned. * Zeke nods and says, "I do not doubt their capability to launch a simultaneous nuclear assault, no." *Fighting* the duektibots is stupid. There's got to be some alternative. * Zeke looks around, then states, "This will make sense to few of you, but I believe I have another interested party, however, I cannot vouch for his credibility. Additionally, there will be a communications delay." * Hestia turns to look at Zeke with an expression that can only be read as 'oh, *really*?' <> * Kyle looks oddly at Zeke. Who in the what now? I will still be here. This is merely an interface issue. * Zeke's birdsect tightens its grip on his shoulder as his holoface blanks out a second. * Kyle nods after inspecting the plant. "Yeah, it's the same type of construction we'd expect from the Guub." <> "H-h-h-hello, chainjumpers. You can call me Four. I'm here to help." <> (oh right. I forgot about Four.) (seriously fuck that guy) (Oh fuck, it's Four.) (I NEVER FORGET) (Wait I forget all the time, but I didn't forget about this guy.) (I did. I forgot what the hell he was about.) (I was hoping it'd be Antima so I could comment on Zeke finally getting her in his suit :( ) (I didn't, which is going to explain a lot) (Except, uh... time-changing conspiracy theories?) * Hestia stares at Zeke, and says in a voice with really dangerous-sounding undertones, "I can't wait to hear the bullshit explanation for *this*." (Four was the guy behind the Mr. Jackson nonsense.) <> "I-i-it's time to bury hatchet and free bygones, Hestia. For the sake of the s-s-s-species, right?" (The Max Headroom refs make more sense now.) (Can I use the delay to play Poker with Don Fernando?) (I could use some extra bread.) (Hot poker?) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lKrnhafUKc) (Oh lord.) * Hestia scowls a lot and says nothing, because even she seems to realize the sentence 'I got your bygones right here, you digital jerkfuck' is not productive brainstorming. (Hestia has grown as a person <3) "I have in-in-information you might use. You might ha-ha-ha-ve-ve guessed that I'm a reasonably good ha-hack-er. I've been listen-listening to the duekti, and they've said some interesting things." (The delay is bad enough already. Him saying every other word twice doesn't help.) Such as? (Ah, now he should try to bargain. So when he does I have an excuse to just shoot Zeke's holoface and get two birds with one stone.) (Oh, I'm all for that.) (:|) "They seem very co-co-concerned about a discovery made nearby. Something called the To-Tone-ne?" <> "Don't know anything about it-t-t though." * Tomas turns to Kyle and mouths "The tone?" (... _nearby_?) * Hestia squints. "Nearby? That's not right." Tone? Uh... (the fuck did we name that planet? Walphin, after the race?) (Aqueon.) I dunno, tone could mean a tone of different things. And for all I know it could be some sort of abstract quality given to something completely different. (Nearby in a galactic sense.) (To the duekti, it's nearby. Sorry.) He means the Walphin 'Tone', I'm sure of it. <> "The walphin what now?" What other single important noun, capital-T 'Tone's could there be? The walphin. The first race we discovered. * Hestia looks back at Four!Zeke. "Have they said what they want with it?" * Kyle hmms. "Yeah, that might be it. Why the hell would they be looking for that, though?" "They're not look-look-looking for it, they're a-a-a-fraid that you've found it. I can't tell you why-y-y-y, other than it's 'moral cor-cor-corruption'." (... God dammit, we just ran into the fucking Zentradi, didn't we?) <> "Hm. If they really are robots, you reckon it's data fragmentation or something? If they're solid-state, some low-frequency noise might mess with their heads." (Hadn't thought about it, but kinda.) * Grysar has quit (Ping timeout) * Hestia puts her hand to her mouth in thought. "It was a vibration of some kind. You could hear it all over Aqueon. The Walphin built their whole social structure around it... they even claimed it gave them prophetic visions. I don't think it's as simple as sympathetic vibration with their frames, though." "If we had a generator we could run some tests... do you think we can find one back there?" (A generator of what? the Tone? Do we even know what generated it?) Hey, didn't that one Deuktibot say it'd have to destroy itself after we spoke to it? (No, but Lexi ran into that amplifier thingie.) There's always been one. Their 'mouthpiece' is always detonated afterwards for contamination purposes. Something tells me if they're attempting to step in as our galactic nannies, that won't be an issue anymore. <> "See? You-you-useful. So can we just put aside our past, and we'll call it sk-sk-square?" (Yeah, Lexi got conked by the amplifier.) You have a really entertaining sense of accounts paying and pending, buddy. "Since you're unlikely to s-s-s-see me again, it'll have to do." * Hestia sighs. "Well... I suppose there isn't any harm in going to Aqueon and looking around. It's not as if we've got any better ideas." "Ex-ex-excellent. Glad to be of ser-ser-service." <> * Zeke spins back up the face a moment later, as he says, "He is very... annoying." * Hestia is always dramatic, which is why she draws her pistol and aims it at Zeke's face. "You've got a lot of explaining to do later, you suit-wearing bastard." (*chitter* Hokay boss *chitter*) <> * Zeke is silent a moment, then states, "Someone offered that secrets were not so important. I did that so that you might survive. Remember that." Why do you think I spoke instead of just pulling the goddamned trigger? * Zeke smiles slightly. "... dramatic effect." * Hestia eyenarrows. "Personally, just shooting you would have been more satisfying AND more dramatic." ... perhaps you are correct. * Hestia then holsters the gun and stands up. "But we don't have time for this, anyway." * Zeke looks to the rest of the group. "No, that is very unlikely. We have two places that may be safely investigated." <> "And one that might be dangerous. Right?" Oh, frankly, they ALL might be dangerous. (Is Przemo suggesting a third option?) "But heading back up the interdiction chain seems like it'd have a higher probability of it." (Aqueon, Guub Planet #3, and the Interdiction Chain are the identified options.) (oh, ok. So Guub II, Aqueon, and up the chain.) (Not that I've mentioned it yet, but SIG-ASP is actually a valid option as well.) (I don't really expect a full decision down two people, so we hit where I wanted to be tonight.) (I'm not even sure where we should head. I'm leaning toward Guub since we're familiar with Guub Prime.) (I imagine other not-us ships will go to whatever location we don't pick) (Of course) (If there's one thing you have, it's ships.) (Anything else?) (Guub, Guub Prime, and Guub Squared.) (I think I'm good. Cold meds, brain melt) (Zeke will have to smooth things over with the ladies once more.) (I am going to get that explanation out of you.) (Especially because the opportunity for it to go ALL WRONG is so amusingly high.) (Yeah.) (Yeah.) ("He's got those drones. I know, I'll just take over the drones.) (That wouldn't end badly at all.) (A knock-down drag out fight would be bad.) (Let's not do that.) <>