Mars Alpha Options

[pbangarth]

Nathaniel joins the rush towards trouble. In passing he wonders why this behaviour hasn't extirpated itself from the human condition. A quick foray into evolutionary theory gives him the stock answers.

His opinion of human intelligence raises a tiny bit when he notices Tanya take up a position behind his bulky frame. Smart girl.

[Marcus Tarrow]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

As he half runs half walks behind the Captain, Jacob grabs his suit helmet from it's pouch on his suit and takes a quick glance around to see who's following.

"Dr Jones and Miss Petrovna?" and glancing back at the security guard from the monorail "and Mr Logan was it? I'm Jacob Griffiths, medic. I guess we're working together on this one."
he lies on the ground, numb from the neck down. fire... he can smell fire. can't see. can't hear. fire. Fire!
suppressing a shudder he continues "Are there any cameras or anything in the area anyone can access? Or even one of those little maintenance drones? A set of eyes in there would be a definate plus. "

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

Nathaniel notices the shudder try to run through Griffiths. Brave man, running to the thing that frightens him.

"Looks like it. Wonder if they planned this."

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

Nathaniel answers Jacob's question as they jog. "I notice they have cameras at every corner and intersection. There must be a massive surveillance network handling all that video equipment. It's beyond me to hack into it, though. Surely the security office would have had access."

He also points out the flashing lights that flow along the walls, with interspersed arrows giving direction. "Looks like they have a system for guiding personnel to safety. I bet all we have to do is follow the arrows backwards."

[nezumi]

"I will see if I can get anything from the networks. Just make sure I don't walk into a wall or anything. Station management frowns on employees walking into walls."

With that, Tanya pulls up her AR. She's already logged into the system; she just needs to elevate privileges for the camera access. She has a few umm... 'troubleshooting' tools, and this seems like a troubleshooting situation. Her system penetration tool, L00bFREE hammers the camera authentication front-end.

(Posting using the dice roller from another forum) 21:11, Fri 17 Oct 2014: Papa Bear rolled 4 successes using 9d6 with the Shadowrun 4th ed system with a target of 5 ((3,4,6,3,3,5,6,6,2)).

I assume that is a success? I don't actually play SR4. Making up the storyline as you go along isn't such a jump when you were already making up the mechanics.

[Bastard]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

JT stares at Griffiths for a moment, trying to find a friendly reply, which he had been out of the practice of doing. He finally thought he had the tone right, but the medic was already jogging on, conversing with the other recruits. JT followed at the trail of the group, scanning the area for any suspicious activity. He noted the cameras the others had pointed out and thought maybe someone should be looking at those right now. If this were foul play, it may not be an isolated incident, and catching the perpetrators should be a high priority.

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

Tanya starts getting feeds from the security system. It takes a moment to sift through the ones not pertinent to the emergency.

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

Tanya's dive into the matrix brings up two feeds showing action not far ahead, around a corner and through a double door. Maybe fifty meters, tops. The first shows smoke billowing out of a room the door of which hangs on an angle from one hinge. Beside the door is a label identifying the room as transformer sub-station A1-1. The second is inside the room, and through what must be a cracked lens shows massive damage to transformers, wiring and cabinets.

Two personnel are on the floor where the air appears to be cleaner; one apparently unconscious and the second dragging the first by the shirt towards the door. Both look severely burned and bleeding. Smoke obscures much of the room and it is hard to tell exactly what happened.

Captain Scrubs Shouts as they round the corner, "Damn! Looks like it might be the transformer room. I was afraid of that. Anybody have alternative air, you better have it handy. If the transformers are burning the smoke will be toxic."

Nathaniel catches that last comment. "Surely they aren't using PCBs in these transformers, are they?"

Scrubs glances back. "Don't ask questions. Just do as you are told."

Oh, God. Nathaniel thinks to himself.

[Bastard]

Mars, Alpha Labs, en-route to explosion site

JT scanned the area for any suspicious characters. Someone walking too calmly away, head down, someone a little too interested in the damage. No one stood out right away, so he started to walk through the gathering crowd.

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, explosion site

As the motley crew arrives at the door to the transformer room, Scrubs immediately takes command and begins removing the gawkers from the site. "Procedure is to LEAVE the danger zone by following the arrows. Do so NOW!" He hands the fire extinguisher to ... Nathaniel ... and says, "Here. Get in there, science guy, and douse anything on fire. The rest of you, pull out any injured."

[Marcus Tarrow]

Mars, Alpha Labs, Explosion site

Looking sidelong at Nathaniel, Jacob chuckles "If this is some sort of first day hazing then they've really gone all out". The half smile drops from his face as he pulls on the suit helmet. "Either way it's a hell of a first day".
Glancing over Tayna's feeds a hint of concern enters his voice "At least one person down and one semi-mobile. I'll need at least one extra set of hands to get them both out here and checked out. Hopefully no additional casualties but we'll have to check."

Ok air tanks on, lowlight on, eyes and ears recording, suit location beacon on... let's get to work

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, Explosion site

Nathaniel smiles at Jacob's observation. Going into potentially toxic fumes doesn't seem to him like a smart thing to do. Remembering his astral scan earlier, he turns to Tanya. "Here." He hands her the fire extinguisher. "You look like you can breath your own air. You go in with him and I'll wait here to grab them as you drag them out."

[nezumi]

Tanya accepts the extinguisher.

"What about the equipment? Are we going to evacuate the air to extinguish it? If we leave the fire burning, the company, it will blame us."

Despite her misgivings, Tanya moves forward, blasting the extinguisher at the ground, around the people, and at anything that looks particularly valuable. She moves to the closest body and, grabbing the closest limb, she makes her way back out the way she came.

(Do the individuals appear to have breathing gear? Can the air be safely evacuated?)

[pbangarth]

Mars, Alpha Labs, Explosion site

The security chief returns his attention to the rescue attempt. "There's a system to evacuate the atmosphere from each room separately. Should have come on automatically, but clearly didn't. There's a bright red lever inside the room to the left of the door. Pulling it will activate the system manually." He and Nathaniel easily take the unconscious person from Tanya's grasp and drag him to waiting medics.

"Go for it once the second one is out. Your internal air tank will protect you."

[nezumi]

"Roger."

Tanya returns back into the smoke, feeling around for the emergency lever to pull it. The door immediately closes, locking down the area, and vents kick on, evacuating the air.

As the smoke clears, she has an opportunity to examine the site of the explosives.


13:55, Today: Papa Bear rolled 2 successes using 6d6 with the Shadowrun 4th ed system with a target of 5.

As a note, part of my delay was losing my character sheet on my other computer (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) I'm playing this one from memory. I need to export it tomorrow and make sure I have a copy on the machines I actually game on, since I can't even find it in the forums. ANYWAY ... SR4 people, is this a success?

[Marcus Tarrow]

Crouched down behind a pair of workbenches and focussed on the biomonitor feeds from the semiconcious 2nd casualty Jacob barely registers the conversation going on between Tanya and the Captain, instead talking quietly (half to himself and half to the patient) as he checks them over for major injuries. "Couple of fractured ribs, glass embedded in the right shoulder through the suit, ears'll be ringing for a bit, cuts grazes and bruises - all things considered not too"

The screeching AR wail of the decompression alarm stuns him into silence for a moment before well-honed reflexes kick into action. "Bad!" Grabbing the casualties suit and lifting, Jacob barrels down a row of workbenches back towards the doorway... a door which a break in the swirling smoke reveals to be rapidly closing. Too rapidly when there's still a row of workbenches between Jacob and the doorway. With a muttered "Sorry" and an almighty heave he throws his soon-to-be-more-injured casualty towards the rapidly narrowing gap...

[pbangarth]

A second technician flies through the rapidly closing doors to the transformer room, and fetches up against the wall of the hallway with a grunt of pain. As the doors close, the wail of the siren in the room beyond lessens to a level that allows thought again. Medics show up to tend to the two technicians, but not before the first man out can be cradled by another man, whose tears streak the soot on the injured man's face. He looks up at the team, and mouths a silent, "Thank you."

Inside the room, Jacob and Tanya hang on to fixed furniture as a strong blast of wind from the exiting atmosphere clears the room of smoke and every other gas. The thin atmosphere outside filters little, and in moments the two of them have a clear view of Mars as few of humankind have ever seen it. Red dust swirls in the eddies of the exit blast, some curling back into the room. A flat plain stretches to the horizon, mottled in many shades of red and brown. A deep indigo sky twinkles with stars and an oblong shape that moves visibly across the sky. Phobos, one of Mars' moons! It seems Mars too has found a way to take their breath away.

Their revery is broken when their commlinks squawk into activity. The security chief's voice speaks, "The two of you. Check in there for any signs of what caused the fire. The rest of us will look for clues out here." The chief turns to the remaining staff. "Alright, everyone clear away form here. We need to secure this area and investigate. Move along." He motions to Nathaniel and JT to help clear the hall. Nathaniel uses his bulk to go in one direction, arms outstretched from one wall to the other, urging people gently to move away. They comply readily as this towering wall of flesh comes towards them.

[nezumi]

Tanya holds tight for the few minutes of rapid decompression (fortunately not explosively rapid!) She'll chat with Jacob, since he just seems to be hanging around. "Well. This is good. Very fun. Have you been to Mars before?"

Once the decompression is done, and she's sure she can move around safely again, she'll start exploring, first turning off the power to the area, then checking into and under devices, looking for possibly causes, focusing on unintentional things; overloaded transformers, a source of heat near an oxygen vent, things such as that, but then moving on to more exotic things. "Do you suppose it is aliens?"

[Bastard]

Mars, Alpha Labs, outside the Transformer Room (explosion site)

Instead of using his bulk to push people back the way Nathaniel did, JT used his general unfriendliness. He physically grabbed the clothing of onlookers telling them to, "Move along, drekhead," or "You have something to do with this, chum?" He gauged people's reaction to him, and the scene. Did they seem fearful of the event, or of him? Did they comply or resist? Would their eyes not focus on anything, or did they linger too long on something? Did they stare him down, or at something, and if so, was that a stare of shock, defiance or some sort of mental defect?

"Hey foolface, what did I just tell you!? Back the frag up."

[Marcus Tarrow]

"No, it's my first trip out here. Until a few weeks before we left home I wasn't even sure that we had a facility on Mars. Had heard that we had something up here but didn't think it was anything like this. What about you, have you been stationed here long?"

As the smoke clears and the wind drops he helps Tanya sift through debris, unsure of what he's looking for but looking for anything obviously out of place.

"Aliens? That's both an enthralling and terrifying thought. 80 years ago we thought people who believed in ghosts, dragons and magic were crazy. Turns out they weren't far wrong. These days people don't believe in aliens. I wonder how crazy they'll look in another 80 years time. Hey what was that you were asking the Doctor about earlier, something about pyramids and skeletons? Have they actually found something up here?"

[pbangarth]

JT's brusque behaviour moved people along, though it brought a lot of stares and "WTF?"s. One person lingered momentarily, craning around JT's stocky body looking at something intently. A quick look back and JT figured it was the couple of men, one holding and crying over the other. The rubber-necker had a faint look of disgust on his face. JT couldn't believe it. Even now.. even here.

He cleared the hallway to the first bend. Once out of direct line of sight, people lost interest and moved on. One woman said, "Come on Mary, let's check it out on the station news feed."

[Bastard]

JT pulls the disgusted man's record, quickly scanning it for any criminal history, political and corporate associations. He will be able to delve more deeply into the file later. First he had to clear the scene. He made a note of the injured and grieving men the suspect was looking at. The bombing could be personal, rather than political or business.

[Marcus Tarrow]

Jacob looks up from where he's searching the remains of a workbench
stop a minute, think logically
Bringing his thermal imaging online he takes a fresh look around the scene. Small pieces of debris, still shining hot in the insulating vacuum, lay sprayed across the floor between the benches like snow blown by the wind. And like blown snow gatheing on the windward side of a tree it's spread shows a clear directionality, one that leads to a large junction box mounted on one of the walls. The door of the junction box is nowhere to be seen, the sides are bulged and the remains of whatever was in there are unregonisable.
"Hey Tanya, what do you make of this? Should whatever was in here have been able to go bang like that?"

[nezumi]

Tanya clambers over to the device. She grabs the remains of a carbon fiber strut; nanofabricated to support the walls of the station against the blasting winds of the exterior while holding in the hundreds of pounds per square foot of atmosphere. It is now Tanya's stick.

She uses it to prod inside the case. Very little of the recognizable pieces of a junction are still there.

"No. These junctions, they melt, not explode. Not like this!"

She pokes a few more times, and carefully brushes a few metal scraps out onto the floor, where she picks them up.

"These do not belong either. Something was planted here. But why here? This corridor ... it is nothing special. Either they wanted to kill someone here, or perhaps for security to look this way for a moment."

[Bastard]

Mars, Alpha Labs, outside the Transformer Room (explosion site)

The corridor was more or less cleared, but it was like wrangling kittens. JT would clear one area, lookie-loos would wander back over as soon as he started dealing with the rubber-neckers in another. Finally fed up, he grabbed a dumb looking fellow by the collar and said in an urgent voice, "We need some help. I need you, what's your name?"

"Micky"
"Alright, Mikey -"
"-Micky"
"All right, you. Run to the Security Center and get some security tape and safety vests. Tell them Captain Scrubs sent you. We are counting on you, sir."

The man ran off toward the Security Center feeling important.