| Belly of the Beast |
| Summary: | Discussions abound both inside and outside the captured heavy raider. |
| Date: | 2041.04.02 |
| Related Logs: | None. |
| Players: |
    |
| Repair Bay — Hangar Deck — Battlestar Cerberus |
|---|
| Post Holocaust Day: #34 |
| When engines need to be rebuilt or other heavy but short-term work needs to be done, this is where it happens. Large, red hand-mobile cranes are situated along the wall beside stacks of toolchests. Carts with various computers and electronics are dispersed around the area for quick access. A very conspicuous yellow locker at the rear holds a sizable amount of firefighting gear, as well. Sturdy metal stands are available to hold all sorts of parts from gun systems to the FTL drives of a Raptor. Big enough to accommodate quite a few Vipers and Raptors at once, this area see's extensive use and is usually attended by at least one crew at all hours of the day and night. |
| Condition Level: 3 — All Clear |
Bannik is in his Deck coveralls, but isn't doing anything too fun with the Heavy Raider right now. Instead, he seems to be sealing off what looks like some Tupperwear containers full of some liquid, placing labels on them, logging them in on a clipboard that's next to him on a work bench. His goggles are up over his eyes and he's occasionally pushing his glasses back up on his nose.
Enter Tisiphone, from yonder direction. She has no lovely orange coveralls of her own, but she's looking less rumpled than she has, as of late — her boots are properly laced, fatigues bloused, if not picture-perfectly, rather than slouching about freely. A borrowed pair of 'earmuffs' are around her neck, rather than on, and she has no goggles of her own. What she /does/ have, however, is one of the deck's larger mops, used for debris sweepdown. Her steps trundle to a halt as she sweeps — ha ha — a glance around the room. Where to begin?
"So I'm a little early…" Penelope apologizes as she enters the bay, a pair of amber goggles nested in her hair and a timepiece with a broken wrist-strap in her hand. She glances at the latter, perking her eyebrows. "About half a day early, I guess, but really — frak it. Linear time's a bourgeois concept. Tyr, how's our captive darling?" She waves enthusiastically to Tisiphone. "Hallo, lovely!"
Bannik looks at Penelope with this wide, wide look. A look that says 'huh'? "Uh. Well. Welcome to the Team, sir," says Bannik. "She's all right. I'm just doing some inventory on this — goo — that seems to be running throughout the systems." He sighs. "It's a real complicated ship, that's for sure." And then he notes the sweeping Tisiphone, flashing her a small, but very small smile. A smile of 'hello,' perhaps.
It's not the most exciting chore for the deckies, but for Tisiphone? She seems positively /energized/. Ever since the word came down from the CAG and Chief Atreus, she's been haunting the deck for four hours a day, pitching in with all the menial tasks the deckies are only too delighted to pass over, themselves. Nary a sound of complaint. Maybe in week two, it'll start losing its charm. For now, she awkwardly juggles the broom between casted arm and good one, and starts to work. To Penelope, a flicker of warm recognition and a nearly-cheery, "Sir!" To Bannik, a more wary expression and a cautious, "Uh. Hey," before her eyes skitter away.
Penelope brings herself to a crashing halt, frowning up at the ship. She tilts her head at Bannik. "Goo?" She nods and looks back at the Raider, chewing the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. "'Goo' is definitely a term I can get behind. Nice and tactile. Where's the stuff coming from? Everywhere?" She ducks under one of the barbs, craning her head up.
Bannik shakes his head. "No. It's coming from these hoses slash appendages that we're finding underneath the cockpit. It's hard to say what they are. They're sort of where we'd put in wiring, but I don't know if they serve the same function. Strip the hoses open and then you've got this goo. What does it do? I don't have the foggiest. But I'm putting it in containers and logging it and marking where it comes from in case we figure it out." He shrugs. "Looks sort of biomechanical, this stuff."
Tisiphone's eavesdropping as best as she's able, without literally sweeping underfoot. Now and again she stoops to pick up something small and metallic off the ground, turn it over in her fingers, and tuck it into a little pouch she's got strapped to her belt. Her route takes her out away from Bannik and Penelope, then doubles back.
"Biochemical…" Penelope echoes, joining Bannik to have an eye at the goo. She takes up a container and sniffs the contents, recoiling. "Yeeeah." She coughs a little and puts the container down. "That went poorly. Okay. Conductive, maybe? Be a sight more exciting than lubricant." She glances up, watching Tisiphone make another pass with the broom. "Did you piss someone off, luv?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Bannik shrugs his shoulders and then waves vaguely to Tisiphone. "Look, Tisiphone, if you want to come listen, come listen. No need to do the worst sweeping job in the world just to hover close to us." He takes the container that Penelope put down and moves it over to a corner so that it can join its friends. "Did you get a copy of the memo I sent along outlining our gameplan, sir?"
/Some/ manner of tension between Tisiphone and Bannik — at least, the Ensign seems to be tiptoeing (tipsweeping?) around him. She makes a bit of a sour face at him, pausing her sweeping. "What, is there some optimal sweeping track I'm missing? I've got-" She checks the cuff on her left wrist as if it was a watch. "-ten hours logged at this job so far." She sighs at the end of it, and puts her shoulder back into her sweeping. It's a new tangent to Bannik and Penelope that she takes this time, heading out around the back of the Heavy Raider.
Penelope snrrks at Bannik, coughing a little. "Just call the lass out why don't you, Tyr?" she grins, nodding her assent to Tisiphone. "You're more than welcome far as I'm concerned — can't do aught but help to have a pilot's eyes on it." She nods to Bannik, "Got the memo, plan sounds sound as sound. I don't guess anyone's going to complain if we get a jump on measuring and photographing her, right? Get the less glamorous work out of th'way so when the Chief shows, we can start with the exciting stuff."
"You'd be surprised. Watch us do a F.O.D. walk-down sometime and you'll see a real good track across the Landing Deck and the Launch Tubes." Apparently, there /is/ an optimal sweeping track. It's one of those Deckie secrets. Bannik then turns his attention back to Penelope. "We've got the basic pictures already, sir," he tells her. "We're now working on the interior strip-down."
Penelope blinks, then beams. "Y'mean I'm coming in just as we're getting to the goodies? Huzzah for me!" She pumps a fist and cants her head again, looking back to the Raptor and zoning who-knows-where a few beats before whipping around to face Bannik again, all enthusaism. "So, then. Show me what we've got so far. Other than goo."
Bannik takes up a very full manila folder and takes out some pictures for Penelope to look at. "Well," he says. "As you can see from these cockpit pictures, it's meant to be controlled by some physical presence. But what's really weird is that those big Centurions?" He points it out on a picture. "They can fit in the cockpit chair, but the controls are pretty fine. I mean, unless they have some complex motor functions we don't know about, I can't see how those tin cans would be able to control the craft." He holds up the picture, tilting it towards Tisiphone. See?
Whether those pilot's eyes are skilled enough to be a worthwhile addition, Tisiphone ain't saying. She thoroughly — if non-optimally, ahem — sweeps her way around to the back of the Heavy Raider, where her studiousness stalls out. She straightens up from her sweeping, there, and spends a long while studying the Cylons' idea of an aircraft's bloomers. Lack of understanding never stopped her curiousity, before. "Uh," she says, peripheral vision tugging her attention from the vessel to Bannik's wiggled picture. Torn between looking and staying put. "Wireless controls? Are they /meant/ to be physically manipulated?" Curiousity wins the day; she crosses back to peek at the picture.
Penelope studies the picture, frowning a little. "Interesting. To be honest, my forte's more guts than interface. But — " She points at Tisiphone and finger-shoots. "Right. They could be jacking in. That's how one machine deals with another normally, innit?"
Bannik moves on to the next picture. "You'd think so, right? But look at this." It's the picture of a standard set of movement controls — the same thing that pilots push in and pull back and turn to the left and right. "Now. Maybe they have two systems. But that'd be weird, right? It looks like a standard tactile input system." He looks between the two. "So I don't know what's up with that."
"I haven't seen a Cylon yet," Tisiphone points out, head canted to look at the picture. "Just- the old records in the library. Heard there's one being picked apart somewhere on-board, but-" A shrug. That's as far as her information goes on the matter. "Know they look different, and they're still good at shooting the shit out of people, but." She clears her throat and bullies on past that topic. "Their hands aren't very refined?"
"That's odd, isn't it?" Penelope agrees, softly, frowning at the picture and by all appearances Thinking Very Deeply. She purses her lips and takes the photo to peer at it more closely. "Have we had an actual pilot inside?" She raises her eyebrows. "I mean, it's all well and good for us to say it looks like a normal interface, but how does it feel? To someone who handles a stick all the time, ken? It's all well and good to measure the distances, but some things, some differences, can be subtler."
"Lieutenant Trask has been working on the project as well. Obviously, I can't say how it's supposed to work, but it seems like it's meant for basically a large, fit human sort of person. On the other hand, I can't make heads our tails of the pictographic read-outs, so it's not like I can say it's the same as the yaw-pitch-level read-outs we have." Bannik shrugs and flashes a picture of the read-outs before putting it back in the file. "Like I said. Lots of questions. Not a whole lot of answers. But I need to get some chow before getting back to work, so …" He trails.
"Right. 'Course. Go eat." Penelope plucks the picture of the displays back out of Bannik's folder. She's chewing her bottom lip. "My kingdom for an ethnolinguist, right? Or a symbologist?" She turns the picture a rotation or two before deciding she had it right-side-up the first time. "I want to go inside." She looks at Tisiphone. "You wanna go inside?"
"Pilot couldn't get it up in the air with any reliability without someone figuring out what does what, first. That's where Boots would come in, yeah." Tisiphone's eyes are a little hooded as she considers that. "Wouldn't get me into one of those things at gunpoint, but, uh." She coughs once, nervously, gives a bit of an awkward shrug. "Probably could have a pitfight over who gets the honours when it's time, though. Sure someone would think it's one hell of a feather for their hat. Catch you around sometime, hey?" This to Bannik, as he announces his departure.
< Exit Bannik for RL. >
Penelope grins at Tis. "At gunpoint? Really? You seem made of sterner stuff to me." She clucks her tongue, but gestures invitingly at the Raider. "It's grounded right now, though. Safe as safe can be. Come on… you know you want to."
Tisiphone watches Bannik head off with a frown trying to knit her pale brows together. Once he turns the corner and is out of sight, her attention moves back to Penelope, who receives a very small and very tense shake of the head. "No, I'm serious. Call it- cowardice-" She brings her good hand up, scrubbing restlessly at her shorn scalp. "-if that's what you really want to do, but I'm not touching That Thing." The capital letters are all but audible. Pale eyes skitter away from the interior of the Heavy Raider to the exterior lines of the vessel, restless.
It's not very loud, but there is some sound coming from inside said Heavy Raider. Undoubtedly, people are likely working in there.
Penny's teasing smile dies a rather swift and grisly death, creases of concern springing up in its wake. "No one who flies out there can be rightly called a coward, in my mind. Apologies, Tis." She looks back to the Raider hulking in the bay. "Didn't realise how serious you were. We all have our boundaries — you've a right to yours." She touches the elbow of Tisiphone's cast, the gesture without the physical contact. "I'm going to take a gander, though."
The engineering officer blinks and raises an eyebrow at the sounds coming from the captive beast. "Alllll-righty, then."
"It's- nah, it's okay. Just- not my thing, that's all." It's all casual, see? Honest. Tisiphone clears her throat and resquares her shoulders a bit, giving a nod to Penelope. "Yeah. Uh- be my guest. I'm happy to offer guesses at what you're seeing in there, but-" More shrugging. Suggestions will come from /out here/, not /in there/. She takes an abrupt step back at the sound starting up within the Heavy Raider, fingers dropping from her neck to the mop-handle.
Penelope lowers her goggles into place, the unusual things making her look like an ambre-eyed bug, or perhaps some mad scientist about to animate a monster. She waggles her eyebrows theatrically at the Ensign, flashing a manic grin. "Right. If you hear me yell 'cucumber,' send for help." With that, she makes her way into the Raider.
Penelope climbs into Captured Heavy Raider-792.
Penelope has left.
"Cucumber, what kind of a safeword is cucumber?" calls Tisiphone after Penelope, chuckling despite herself at that manic grin. She takes a step back and to the side, watching the other woman clamber inside until she's lost from view, then fidgets with her mop-handle for a time before recommencing her Bannik Dis-Approved(tm) cleaning path.
| Captured Heavy Raider-792: Hangar Deck - Battlestar Cerberus - Repair Bay |
|---|
| IC Time: Post Holocaust Day #35 |
| The inside of this craft is dark, and sparse, minimizing clutter in its sleek presentation of systems. It is pressurized and has an O2 supply indicating some possible desire to transport organic beings for one reason or another. Creepy. The rear contains a large cargo area capable of seating some twelve to fifteen people and gear, depending on how tightly-packed. The controls are a suspiciously familiar yoke-based layout and several consoles are here indicating ship's vital systems, including weapons, navigation and FTL in a red-and-black visual readout. It's unsure how everything is powered on, but there are a series of purple-and-red recessed switches that look like they are made for large fingers, human or Cylon. |
Large enough to fit 15 or so passengers, not including the pilot, the Heavy Raider is currently accommodating six people who are all dressed in the distinctive orange jumpsuits that are so en vogue with knuckledraggers. As can be expected, they all work with an air of rapt fascination, intense scrutiny, and utter curiosity. It doesn't appear that they've delved very far, but that likely has to do with how meticulous they are being. Bits and pieces are being photographed, measured, and thoroughly examined before being removed. So far, several pieces are neatly arranged on a dolly, bagged and tagged.
"The kind I thought I'd be least likely to cry out while frakking — that's kinda the point, right?" Penelope calls back over her shoulder as she ducks into the ship. "I should have gone more obscure, maybe?" she muses to herself, squinting as her eyes adjust. She lifts her goggles and settles them atop her head, hands sliding along the dark composite panels and struts. "Alien and yet familiar, aren't you, luv?" she murmurs. "Made by something that was made by us. Whispered down the lane." She pauses to look over the shoulder of a crewman who's photographing a part in situ before removing it, then looks up and around. "Anyone seen more goo?" The goo, now that stuff is interesting.
"What the-?" Aforementioned crewman who was photographing a part in situ turns his head, startled to see Penelope right there. Once the initial 'wtf?' of surprise dissipates, his face assumes a 'wtf?' expression of irritation. That is until he spots the shiny El-tee pins. At that point, the 'wt' are dropped and it's just the 'f'. "Sir." Cue Pavlovian salute.
A question was asked, though, and a PO2 steps up to the plate and inquires, "You from Engineering, sir?"
Penny grins at the crewman. "As you were and whatnot," she responds to the salute, amiably, turning to speak with the PO2. "I am. Lieutenant Paris. Captain Gabrieli sent me to have a look." She shoves her hands into her pockets and peers about. "I'm generally 'Penny' unless orders are being given." She wrinkles her nose on the word 'orders,' as though it were somehow akin to 'enemas,' only… you know… drier. "So. Show me around? Or, if there's nothing yet to show, show me where I can make myself useful. Also, if there's goo, I really want to see it." She nods.
"Yessir," nods the crewman, who then goes back to work.
The PO2 returns the smile, a hint of laughter in the blonde's voice, "Well, sir, we have orders from the Chief to address officers as 'sir'." Atreus: 1; Penny: 0.
"Special accommodations may be made for former knuckledraggers," quips a dark-haired man dissecting an avionics console, "but you're one of G-Force's peeps, which means you get 'sir'ed, sir." At that comment, a few present crack smirks and attempt to stifle grins. "If it's goo you want, though," Trask continues, for it is Trask who's serving the sass, "most of what we've so far found has been hauled off. I'm sure another leak will be spring when we're ready to detach more arteries." That last word is somewhat sardonically said.
Back to the blonde PO2, she informs Penelope, "Not sure how much of a tour there is, sir. What you see is pretty much what there is. So far, anyway."
"Far be it from me to countermand the Chief, kids," Penny holds up her hands in surrender, smirking wryly. "'Sir' away. Just be patient with me if I don't respond immediately, or hit my head on something expecting to see my boss." She sits in the seat adjacent to the avionics console, watching Trask work a moment. "What I really want is to see where you're finding the goo. There's a theory that it might be conductive — not just your standard lube. I want to know where it's coming from, what it's running through, what's controlling it. Yackity-schmackity. Are you seeing a lot of standard wiring, or more tubes and fluid?"
Since he's the one being addressed, Trask is the one to answer. "Well, Penny," the Chief isn't his boss, "tubes an' fluid appear to be the standard wiring on this model." Peering from his work, brown eyes alight on the brunette. "E or M&R?" Abrupt, just like that, although genuinely curious. "Trask, by the way." Gabrieli may or may not have mentioned him as an Air Wing liaison.
"Innnnnnnn-teresting," muses Penny, craning to get a better look in the panel without getting too much in Trask's way. It's a bit acrobatic. "M&R. Nice to meet you — Tyr mentioned you, actually, not an hour ago. So you're not entirely shocking." She smirks, dimpling to one side of her mouth. Then, brightening with a rush of enthusiastic interest, "Anything on these interfaces look like a jack? A place to plug in? We're trying to figure out — obviously — how the toasters fly these things. Tyr thinks the controls are too delicate for a toaster — unless they have more delicate tools on 'em we don't know about. Tis an' me, we think they might jack in — but if they do, why the person-size controls?"
"Hold on a sec…" Gingerly, a chip is removed with a pair of tweezers. Once acquired, Trask tells the M&R envoy, "Feel free to take a closer look." A digital photo of the chip is taken. "It look anything like what you found in your cookie jar?" That being the Centurion. Carefully, the tidbit is sealed and labeled, including the image file numbers and a few notes.
To answer the question about jacks, he notes, "Nah. Nothin' like that. There's some serious wireless action goin' on, though, and comparing notes with medical suggests something biomechanical. Still trying to determine how the interfaces work. We found it powered-down, and our cursory sweeps showed no signs of electrical activity." Drily, Trask adds, "With all this organic seeming stuff? I wouldn't be surprised if it has bat-like sonar." How fun is it to think the ship might be transmitting in such a manner?
"Excellent question," Penny says, sliding over and lowering her goggles. She slips on a pair of thin gloves, pops out a pen light, and peers inside the panel. "I missed that little party, t'my undying jealousy and chagrin. All the photos are getting uploaded to someplace central, right? I'm going to want to make comparisons with whatever they took of Robbie Robot." She glances at Trask, considering him a moment before looking back inside the panel. "Doesn't that seem… a little frakking wonky to you? Biomechanics. Why? Where the frak are they getting these… ideas, if you can call them that? They're machines, in space. They're trying to make us frakking extinct… so what's with the love for the biological, now? What's the advantage?"
Facetious as he is, it's possible that Trask might not be serious when he offers, "Maybe they started building cyborg lackeys. Y'know, to fight their wars and generally be cannon fodder. Maybe get off on seeing 'em die. Or this could all just be yet another colossal frak-up, courtesy of frakwit Caprican douchebags looking to score some cubits. I don't design killer robots that skullfrak honor students, but I wouldn't put it past frakwit Caprican douchebags thinking that killer robots might be more manageable if made more human. Or, like, a border collie." To the rest, "Unlike the government, Cerb's different departments share what's been found. Which reminds me… I need to needle your boss."
"Yeah, I'll pass that needlin' on with my own — he's a busy, busy man, Captain G." Penny sits back and slouches in the seat before the adjoining console, pushing her goggles back up into her hair. She seems to be thinking very, very deeply, opening her mouth and drawing breath as though about to impart a great revelation (twice)… only to snap her mouth shut again, shaking her head. Finally, she lolls her head to the side and raises her eyebrows at Trask, offering, "I'd have a much harder time killing them if they looked like border collies."
The power of cute is a formidable thing. "Here's hopin' we're not contending with killer robot puppies that can literally pee your leg off." Beat. "Or hump it off." At that, Trask pauses, realizing it's a kind of badass idea, actually. This leads to a tangent about biological warfare in the form of doggy doo-doo. That thought, however, he keeps to himself. In regard to Gabrieli, he quips, "Yeah. Seems the only time I get to see him is when he's laid-up in the Recovery Ward." It's spoken with the manner of blitheness that comes from a long-standing friendship.
Before anything else can be added, a small alarm goes off. With a wry tone, the ECO explains, "That's my cue to prep for my day job. See y'around, Penny." With a jaunty, scout-style salute, Bootstrap departs, telling his knuckledragger colleagues, "CAP calls. Catch ya later."