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Nyx
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Karma: 0 |  | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #45 on Sept 2, 2009, 11:18pm » | |
Tap... taptaptap...tap... of her fingers against a keypad, moving with alternating bursts of speed. The steady entry of passcodes was hindered only by her own mind's fragmented structure.
She focused on breaking the seal on the cellblock, ignoring the fact that her fingers were splattered with slowly drying stains, sticking ever so slightly to the keys.
The door swished open.
She stood silhouetted in the hallway for long moments, not quite absorbing the scene in front of her. Even after several seconds of the stillness, it wasn't quite clicking into place as reality.
There was a man slumped against the wall, curled, actually. His white hair stood out starkly against the darkness, set aglow by the soft radiance of the emergency lighting.
White labcoat--Dark liquid spurting over her hands--the taste of copper somehow sparking in her mouth, upon her lips...
The man's hand clenched, pale fingers scrabbling weakly against the bulkhead. Not dead...
There was an odd scent in the air, she tried to ignore it.
Her eyes darted to the other figure, taller than herself, his balding head set aglow in the same way as that of the man on the floor. The mercenary captain, her mind supplied. The instigator, the catalyst. The portable chirped quietly in her hand. A code had been bypassed. She glanced down, sealed the bridge off again.
As if from another person's ears, she heard herself speak. "It's time to go. There's a small transport docked, at the moment. We should be able to commandeer it without too much trouble."
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Sora
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #46 on Sept 2, 2009, 11:35pm » | |
Sora hardly heard Nyx, his attention focused on his previous captor. He wanted to kill this man, but knew he had to leave him. He didn't have time for the proper channels, and he wasn't going to just kill him here. He'd have to wait.
He looked over at Nyx after a few moments. "Alright then."
He stared at the body of Silas for a moment, then turned to leave it, reluctant- the job was not done.
He looked at Nyx, and gave her a silent nod of thanks. He knew this was all her doing. He'd be dead without her.
That deserved promotion at least. He grinned.
He reached into Silas's pocket to grab a key. "We should stop by the armory first." It was handily located not far from their location, and so he ran there just ahead of Nyx. He grabbed a small rifle, and then tossed Nyx a pistol. He had no idea if she could shoot, so it was best to give her something small.
After that, he checked the stolen device, and made way for the docks. It was easy enough to find, and the ship was not guarded. It was just a small ship after all. Not important. It was truly a hunk of junk though, and he hated leaving the Twilight behind...
He sighed, and knocked on the thing. "You can get us inside, right?" He turned to cover his programmer, towards the dock bay.
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Nyx
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« Reply #47 on Sept 3, 2009, 12:03am » | |
She saw him hesitate, watched him stare at the barely moving form on the floor. Her mind scrambled for a name to put with that shockingly white hair, that fine boned form, but failed. There was something in the way that the captain's body tensed, though, something nauseating about that terribly unfamiliar scent in the air...
She followed him to the armory, replacing blocks on the codes when the portable chirped its warning. Such a disloyal little machine it was, warning her so; perhaps it wasn't not so disloyal. It was, after all, just a tool. It worked for whomever played the proper tune.
Another disturbing line of thought. Her sticky hands clasped the bitterly cold metal of the pistol. It was like liquid nitrogen to her, so cold it nearly burned. The other thing had burned the same way, that instrument of--
The captain was speaking; asking if she could get them inside the dessicated hunk of metal that was their transport. Of course I can, she wanted to hiss. It's elementary. She didn't speak, though. It was as if her tongue were frozen in her mouth, numb; as if her vocal cords had lost the ability to flex and vibrate.
She jacked the portable into the port by the door, running a codebreaker to get them inside. It didn't take long, only a minute, really. Then they were inside. Their boots echoed unnaturally against the darkened hull of the interior.
The bridge was where she expected it to be. The positioning of the programmer's station just the same as it was on any standardized vessel. She settled in, abandoning the portable for the moment to breathe the spark of life into the sleeping ship.
Light flared into existence, bathing them both starkly in the fluorescence. Her breathing hitched slightly at the sight of her hands, of the sticky, flaking redness that was shed onto everything she touched.
White labcoat, vanishing in a flurry of violence.
Cascading over the screen, the code forced her to focus on the moment. She was still hooked into the Titan ship's systems, but that would do for the interim. She would need to keep them down, while getting the captain and herself out of the situation.
Click...Click...Click...
The bay doors opened. They were almost free.
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Sora
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #48 on Sept 4, 2009, 9:55pm » | |
He chuckled as Nyx got the door open. She probably would never fail to amaze him- such talent, probably much of it still latent. He couldn't believe how easy this was for her. He smiled as she got onto the ship. Taking a look around, he wrinkled his nose. The Titans were too clean. On the other hand, maybe Nyx would like it. He shrugged.
They entered the bridge- unlike his ship, everything was in order. The stations were all where he expected it to be. As Nyx worked on getting the power on, he made his way over to the captain's chair, and when the power flared into life, he quickly rerouted firing control, engines, and shields to his console. He quickly directed the charging of weapons and got the engines warmed up.
Then the bay doors opened.
Without looking up, he said, "You're amazing Nyx." He slowly pulled up, and the ship was off the ground. Around this point, Titans began pouring into the bay, following them. But the ship was already up, no chance. He blasted into space. He came about, weapons bared. "Just disable for now. Jam their com." He took aim, blazing a shot straight at their engines. The ancient weapons were pathetic in comparison to his normal ones, but this ship had no chance at this close range. The engines on the other ship suddenly went silent, before exploding into light. They burned the fuel in them... definitely disabled.
He came about, and went as fast as the piece of crap could go towards rebel space.
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Nyx
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #49 on Sept 17, 2009, 8:37pm » | |
She braced herself against the dull roar of the engines; the blast of brief inertia before the dampeners kicked in on the decrepit husk of a ship.
Her fingers darted across the keyboard; the movements calculated, measured. No energy was wasted here. Administrative access wrested from the helm. Communications jammed. Shields disabled. Weapons on their way to shutdown.
The computer responded somewhat sluggishly after the speed of the portable, which was a model she hadn't seen before. New, she thought, but there was no time to examine it.
A beep from the handheld computer alerted her to the machinations of the...
enemyallyprisonhome
...ship they were only just departing. The shell that she and the...
friendannoyanceenemyally
...captain were riding in was still hooked up to Titan's control. Carefully, she brought up the necessary codes, keeping the operating system for now, but removing the the ship from the network. The lights flickered; she spared a quick glance to the screen and checked the power.
...not enough. Let the lights go out. Shutdown all unnecessary systems, let essentials go to backup. Check the power again, still going to be close, but maybe.
In the dim light from the screen, she couldn't see her hands anymore. Why didn't she want to see them? She couldn't remember.
Don't think about--
Focus. Survive. Complete the missiondecisionescapesimulation.
The ship shuddered again, she fed it more power, shutting down life support in the sparse, tiny excuse for living quarters after sealing off the bridge. The ship's power boosted into a better range, but she kept an eye on it. They were going to make it out. They had to make it out.
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Sora
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #50 on Sept 20, 2009, 11:39pm » | |
Sora stayed at the helm, all but ignoring the lights. He assumed that Nyx would take care of it. The ship, and getting away- those were his responsibilities. He pushed the ship as far as he could. He had to keep the stupid thing going before pursuit could be arranged. He dumped the cargo from the ship to try and hamper people from following. He also set the two pathetic mines the ship had behind the ship.
He looked over at where he thought Nyx was. "Nyx, I've done all I can do. The rest is up to you. We'll be safe in 4 hours." Four hours.
A lot could happen in four hours. Indeed a lot.
He looked down at his console, watching it for incoming. If they had incoming, then they wouldn't have much chance to fight it. They would be blown to smithereens. Quickly. Without any chance at all.
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Nyx
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Karma: 0 | | Re: Into the Black
« Reply #51 on Dec 1, 2009, 11:12pm » | |
There was a moment when the Titan ship was fully visible through the forward viewpane. Its clean lines cut through the silent void of space; it was such an unnatural construct, and yet-- had Nyx looked up to see it--she would have found it strangely beautiful.
She didn't see it, of course. Her focus during that brief moment in time was solely on rerouting power to the engines. Perhaps, if she had looked up, if she had felt the stirring of longing the image would have sparked, she would have hesitated. As it was, she did not look up. She did not see the ship as it hung dead in space, and she certainly did not hesitate.
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Four hours to... safety?
The idea flickered in and out of her mind within a moment, registering consciously, but only just. The ship they had come from was larger and held more firepower than they had any hopes of matching.
For the moment, it was also under her control.
'In any battle situation, the duty of the programmer is to eliminate the enemy as a threat.'
She felt no remorse when she cut all power in the larger ship.
-
Looking out of the viewpane as the ship passed out of view, an observer would have seen all of the ship's running lights go dark in the moment the code was executed. Those with any knowledge of Titan construction knew that the outage was fixable, but tedious and time consuming. Four hours would be more than enough time for the outdated transport to reach Rebel space.
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It's done.
Nyx swallowed and let her shaking hands fall still on the console. She felt chilled, lightheaded, and slightly ill. Beneath the surface, a vague impression of violence struggled to breach her conscious mind.
It wasn't me. That could not have been me.
The impression refused to fade, and a moment later she was fighting down another wave of horrified nausea. the thingypit was eerily silent. She felt her lips moving, but didn't realize she had spoken until the words were hanging in the air.
"I killed someone."
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