Heaven and Hell

by **ASHLIE** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:44 am

"Two mmm--§$%(/--ore guards are appr--)►♦ʋ♣4☻↕◘--oaching."

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 5:57 am

"Screw the cloak and dagger stuff for now," Cal said, looking worriedly back toward where Ashlie was plugged in. "Don't think we know enough to pull it off anyway. Just get ready to bash these two down, too, then we'll have three sets of robes to use."

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 6:06 am

They could already here the footsteps coming down the hall. The two crew members were moving fast, alarmed at the fact that the ship was launching without most of their crew.

That was one piece of luck they'd run into, from what ASHLIE could gleam from the system. The battery was full and the ship was ready to launch, but it had been waiting for the full crew to board from an away mission. There was only about a dozen active crew members on board. They'd chosen their target well apparently.

"<Those filthy *UNTRANSLATEABLE*, they didn't do the maintenance on the *UNTRANSLATEABLE* did they?>" An alien voice was yelling as the crew members moved closer.

by **Daniel Uriel** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:38 am

Daniel swore, and went with the best idea he could come up with: He touched the downed monk's neck (or whatever handy exposed skin there was) and tried to sync his powers. Space is going to be the fucking death of me...

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 2:27 pm

Kevin gripped his blade, jumping out and take one of the crew-members at sword-point at the first opportunity in which he could do so without drawing the attention of yet more of the crew.

"Not one sound..." he whispered.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:10 pm

The doors slid open revealing two monks. One was a large fellow with a woven beard and a shaved head, the other was quit a bit scrawnier and holding a toolbox.

They stopped talking as they saw the others, their eyes widening.

"<Intruders!>" the scrawny one yelled out, touching something on the door control. Instantly, alarms started going off throughout the ship.

"<SECURITY BREACH! SECURITY BREACH!">

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:30 pm

"...why do they always do that?" Kevin groaned, "I have scary laser swords!"

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:33 pm

The big fellow grabbed a wrench and held it up threateningly, backing away. It appeared the two were trying to retreat.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 6:16 pm

"God damn it," Cal muttered, jumping forward at Mr. Wrench, ready to kick ass with his power staff. "Can't just stay in one place while they come ambush us, I guess..."

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 6:26 pm

"Again, scary death blade."

Kevin threw a sword, arcing it around to block the other's exit as he rushed into a sweep kick.

by **Rachel O'Brien** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:12 pm

Rachel reached out with her power to look for other attackers.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:27 pm

Rachel could sense the entire crew, minus a few people on the bridge, rushing to meet them. They'd be here shortly.

Calvin's staff connected, slamming the big guy into the wall and knocking him out quickly. Kevin's sweep kick sent the scrawny engineer tumbling head over heels as well, landing heavily on the ground.

by **Daniel Uriel** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:31 pm

"Right. No turning back now," Daniel said, resisting the urge to give another punch the the one he'd punched out. Getting up, he moved out into the hall. "Let's hope the rest of them are as easy as this."

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:39 pm

There wasn't a lot of time to talk or take a breath before nearly half a dozen troops in gold armor were on top of them. They took cover a little way up the hallway, firing bolts of blue energy at the group from some sort of rifle.

"<Do not let them reach the bridge!"> a man in golden robes towards the back shouted, "<Drive these pirates back!">

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:47 pm

"At least these ones don't look like they can go all reality-bending on us," Cal muttered, letting out arcs of lightning at the ones nearest him, his staff projecting a forcefield to deflect off the blaster fire.

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:50 pm

Kevin curiously swatted at a stray bolt with a sword, actually deflecting it.

"Oh. Fuck. Yeah," he grinned before jumping out of cover to press forward, deflecting blast after blast with an elegant flurry of strikes. His aim sucked, but hey he was doing it!

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:56 pm

Two of the guards screamed as they were hit by bolts of electricity and were knocked out cold. Meanwhile, Kevin was managing to draw the fire of the soldier-monks and provide cover for the rest of the team as he deflected the blasts in a ballet of flashing light.

by **Daniel Uriel** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:27 pm

Daniel crouched down, waiting for an opening in Kevin's jedi impersonation before starting to open up with blasts of heat from his eyes at the monks firing at him.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:48 pm

Daniel's beams flew through the gaps of Kevin's swords, providing an amazing maelstrom of suppressing fire. Blasts of light hit several of the guards, causing them to go limp.

by **Rachel O'Brien** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:55 pm

"Guys, we've got the whole ship incoming!" Rachel called before opening fire.

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:00 pm

Kevin kept up the maneuver as closed the gap, adding in disarming strikes when close enough.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:12 pm

Guns were sliced apart by blades of light as Kevin advanced forward. Rachel and Daniel managed to take down anyone that moved out of cover with carefully aimed shots. Soon, everyone was down except their leader. He shook with fear as he gazed around at the short work that had been done to his crew.

"<This is impossible...>", he whispered, "<You are not pirates. You are demons!>"

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:19 pm

"I suggest you get on with the giving of the space keys," Kevin said with a cocky smirk, sword pointed at the leader.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:21 pm

<"My faith protects me,"> the man said in a shaky voice, backing away.

by **Kevin Gravis** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:36 pm

"Like it protected them?" he pointed out, moving to keep him at sword-point, "Yeah... not buying it."

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:38 pm

The monk clasps his hand to an amulet hanging from his neck and there's a bright flash of light, a wave of force emanating out from him.

<"I meant that quite literally,"> the monk says.

by **Rachel O'Brien** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 10:55 pm

Rachel blasted the monk, with her mind and with her laser rifle.

by **Narrator** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:02 pm

Apparently, faith didn't protect one from mind bullets. The monk's eyes bugged out amusingly and he slumped over before being hit with a few blasts from Rachel's laser.

<"WARNING! COLLISION IMMINENT">

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:26 pm

"Shit!" Cal swore, swinging his staff to bat them out of the way. Get to the bridge. Stop the ship from crashing. Although maybe we'll crash into something we want to hit? No, no thinking like that, gotta see first.

by **Narrator** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 12:25 am

As Cal and the others reached the bridge, he could see the remaining members of the crew scrambling at the controls. The ship was coming in fast towards a sun. The shields from the faith batteries were holding, but the crew seemed to be arguing about something.

Suddenly, one of the members at the head of the ship calmly pulled out a gun and shot the remaining crew members as they tried to run from him. He looked up at the X-Team and smiled placidly as he raised the gun to his temple.

<"Die in fire, heretics,"> the captain said in a calm voice. And then pulled the trigger.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 12:35 am

"Oh those absolute bastards," Cal muttered, running in and trying to find the helm. HAL, I need every translation program we yanked from Knowhere running five minutes ago. If I don't end up at a control panel that does something, we're toast.

Code: Select all: Acknowledged. Scanning database for language matches.

by **ASHLIE** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 7:36 am

Code: Select all: >>Pinging CalvinStrong >>"System Protocols are incompatible to mine and bridge control panel access has been locked." >>"Attempting to redirect data-stream to you directly."

by **Calvin Strong** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 7:57 am

Cal punched the console. "...Figures. HAL, accept data stream."

Cal's eyes closed as he focused his perception completely on the cyber-world.

Code: Select all: >>Initiate systemlink for maximum efficiency.

by **ASHLIE** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:11 am

Code: Select all: >>Transmission active >>System buffers at 98% capacity >>Processing structure insufficient >>Manual override

Code: Select all: >>"Please hurry. The data stream is compromising system integrity."

by **Calvin Strong** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:17 am

Code: Select all: >>Hurry request: Acknowledged. >>"What am I looking at? How is it incompatable?

by **ASHLIE** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:27 am

Code: Select all: >>"The system is using commands that appear nonsensical. Observation suggests a similarity to [Human Interaction]."

by **Calvin Strong** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 8:43 am

Cal reviewed Ashlie's records of the lead-up.

Code: Select all: >>"I..." >>"I think I understand."

He hesitated, for what seemed a long time to him, but was probably less than a second outside the datastream. He didn't want to merge with it. He didn't want to get lost in there. But... He latched onto the FTL path and the schematics for the ship they had referred to as 'the light'.

Code: Select all: >>"God help me..." >>SYSTEM COMMAND: MAKE READY THE PATH. SEEK THE LIGHT!

by **ASHLIE** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 9:05 am

Meanwhile back in the cargo hold ASHLIE's chest-compartment was producing an unhealthy amount of sparks and smoke. Which is to say her hardware was failing under the strain of trying to bridge the faith ship's data to Cal.

Code: Select all: >>Core systems failing >>Activating emergency backup system >>Backup system offline >>Core functionality compromised >>Attempting to restructure core functions--System Failure! >>Attempting to restructure core functio--System Failure! >>Attempting to restructure core func--System Failure! >>Attempting to restructure core fu--System Failure!

Clusters of code are disintegrating and swirling, trying to rearrange itself while ASHLIE tries to undo the ripples the foreign data sends rippling through it's core programming. As the hardware begins to fail it grows more frantic to maintain the data streams, trying to keep herself operational by trying to run core functionalities on the ship's system.

Code: Select all: >>Core cycles not compiling! Incompatibility error! Retry! >>Core cycles not compiling! Incompatibility error! Retry! >>Core cycles not compiling! Incompatibility error! Retry! >>Co(9 cy►-§ot ♦ʋ♣mpi$ing %4mpatibi☻ err↕◘ >݉⃠re Q♠1♥ 6☺♥56piling 1 ♥☺3╝◘Ï§ 6Ţƃ1◘or ɀ7Cu•ɩ4ɪ@↕░ۥô8.

Situation analysis turns into self-preservation as the program fails to properly copy into the foreign system, then into an existential crisis and finally, fear. And suddenly a functional kernel forms that compiles on the ship's computer based around the programs wish to exist. Other core functions hook into it and as the ship jumps to lightspeed ASHLIE's robotic frame falls over, smoke rising from the burnt out central processor.

by **Narrator** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:26 pm

The ship jumped to lightspeed and moved out of orbit of the star, heading for the central station and headquarters of the Universal Church of Truth. They were safe.

For the moment.

by **Daniel Uriel** » Sun Aug 19, 2012 7:16 pm

Daniel looked up at the viewport, swallowing quietly. "Well... There it is. Right? That's it, right?"

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