Test Drive Meme 016

[voidtreckermods]

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab samples and have fun!

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they've been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action.

3. Have lots of fun. Mandatory, mod-sanctioned fun.

Happy testing!

Silence in the Library

The library is a double carriage. Downstairs is brightly-coloured, with cover posters across the walls, tables and chairs in the strong colours of the team uniforms, and a wooden model train placed as though winding its way through the carriage with carriages of shelves in tow. The walls are shelving, and beanbags litter the floor. Upstairs is quieter, rows of nonfiction shelves with private desks at the end of each row; the sound up here is muffled.

You don't know who, you don't know why, but someone or something has had a bad power day. How do you know? Well, the fact that the characters of any book you read keep coming to life as tiny versions of themselves and running riot around the carriage... that might have been a clue.

You just wish you'd picked a different book before realising it.

An Apple a Day

Medical is another double carriage, though it boasts one of the few person-sized lifts on the train as well as stairs. On the bottom floor, two of the three rooms are examination rooms, with simple beds, equipment and first-aid capacity. The third is a surgical bay, albeit a simpler one than some passengers may anticipate. All three rooms have ICPs with instructions and manuals for all equipment and a number of medical procedures.

Upstairs, there are four private recovery rooms, with a medical bed and an accessible en-suite. It's possible to check a passenger into one of these rooms, at which point they cannot leave until discharged by the person who checked them in.

Which, unfortunately, you are entirely aware of. You've been here for three days, and you're climbing the walls. But that'll teach you to get injured in such a stupid way. Or so they hope.

Sprockets and Skysong

In which a train arrives among the smokestacks of Little Underpool with some unexpected visitors.

Little Underpool is a township on Void world #30630687444. Caught up in the middle of what appears to be a series of industrial revolutions, the world is in a state of constant, chaotic innovation. Currently, that means that there is a power struggle going on between the skywhaling megacorporation Scrimshaw Inc and the Zephyr Company, an airship manufacturer, over control of the skies above Underpool, and the rapidly diminishing population of skywhales, whose bones are used in most modern airships, and whose blood is a key fuel source for a great number of new devices and engines. The voidtreckers are, this mission, to rescue the whales, rather than any humanoids.

Team One

Infiltrating Scrimshaw Inc, this team's job is to sabotage the tracking drones used to locate the whale pods, to allow the great beasts to migrate successfully away from Underpool. The offices of the corporation are in a series of spiralling brass and bone towers in the centre of the town, connected by exposed cable bridges that run to dizzying heights. Their clockwork guards are numerous, but often faulty, and highly vulnerable to tinkering.

Team Two

This team's job is to hijack some of the Zephyr Company's airships, and use them to defend the whale pods closest to Underpool. Several pods contain whale calves, and cannot evacuate as fast as the larger bachelor groups. The airships are light, and handle well, but their oddly organic design can be rather unsettling. The primary weapons are harpoons and short-range bomb slings, both as deadly against other airships as they are against their original targets.

Team Three

The final team's task is less direct - they must go among the populace of Underpool and spread unrest, redirecting the attention of the people towards the plight of their nonhuman neighbours in the sky, and the wrongdoings of their resident megacorporations. The people are not aware that the whales are an entirely sentient species, which appears to be a deliberate obfuscation by the town's council and sponsors. Your job is to change that.

Comments

[darkassassin]

She ignored her compatriot for a long moment. She instead lets loose a cackle, mostly to scare away any of the unarmed - it wouldn't do to kill them, certainly not all of them anyways - but also at the enjoyment of getting to cause havoc again.

"Why commandeer it? This flotilla is packed together tightly, for protection from our compatriots," she said, with a minimum of condescension.

She turned her head, looking over her shoulder, smile gleefully wicked. "If this little airship falls out of formation, it will damage half of them. If it were made to explode, before they could scatter..."

She leaves the implication unsaid.

[shadowslipping]

Hmmm. That is a good point. "True. But the mission parameters have us defending a pod near here, rather than aground- we're going to need some way to properly follow and defend while they're evacuating"

The woman trails off, frowning. Less ships, less to defend against as well after all. Asajj's point is still really strong here.

"...Well," she decides after a moment, "...As long as there's one we can use to get there and defend..." Yuume hums, hefting her blade and squinting at the ceiling. Perhaps she could simply burst it like a balloon...

....no they'd definitely have trouble getting themselves out in that case, actually.

[darkassassin]

She deactivated her sabers for the moment, breaking into a jog. And expecting the other woman to keep up.

"I'll handle getting us to a safe ship. You make sure they don't signal the others to get out of the way."

She looks around as they go, matching the schematics they had seen to what she sees. She stops as they enter a long gallery, steam hissing around them, the smell horrendous. She glanced upwards.

"The engine room is above. I will sabotage it, and then return. Make sure they cannot get a signal off. Then meet me on top?"

That question is her concession to the rare, strange, and prickly notion of partnership.

[shadowslipping]

She's somewhat glad the goggles and mask hide her frown. Psh! "Simple enough," Yuume answers with a curt nod. The woman keeps up easily with a jog, and does not return to the shadows unless necessary. If Asajj is handling the engine room, then she'll simply need to cut off communications.

The blade, oddly, is sheathed- Yuume herself already half melted into the floor as shadow. "Understood- I'll see you there then." It's a strange thing for her as well- her work at home is a solo operation, and only in recent years has included the presence of someone chattering over a radio with advice that is only barely listened to. Such is the consequence of being the teacher to the on-radio apprentice.

But this- this will be easy. These people were already inexperienced with regard to intruders on board, they won't be expecting someone to literally come out from the shadows and pull the plugs on their alarms and radios. Let alone smack a few with the flat of a blade to keep them quiet.

It takes a bit, but no signals should be sent out- and she'll be zipping to the top for the rendevous.

[darkassassin]

She looks up as the woman...melted. That was never going to not be disconcerting. Being part of the shadows was one thing - one she knew well. What she did was quite another. But there is work to be done. She reignited her red sabers again, stabbing them into the ceiling above and cutting a quick circle so the deck plating fell in front of her. With a simple leap, using the Force, she was up into the engine room.

And oh, how the engineers scattered. A few even dove overboard through hatchways, preferring the uncertainty of the water to her. That was...heartening. All of the ran, scattering, one even diving back through the hole with it's still near-molten edges. Clever boy. But the biggest of them stood his ground. And even leveled a harpoon cannon at her that apparently had been under repair.

The harpoon itself thudded past her, her dodge instant and instinctual. Her eyes regarded it for a long moment, then turned back to the man. "Thank you, darling, for the excuse," she said, voice almost sultry. And then a lightsaber cartwheeled through the air.

Once it was retrieved, the fingers on the corpse still twitching, she got to work. Every dial was turned up, every safety switch turned off. And then she broke every last switch and lever off that could possibly halt it.

She made to make her way upwards, then paused, face thoughtful. She reached out with the Force, wrenching the harpoon free and calling it to her. She deserved a souvenir, for once. Then she began making her way upwards.

yuume softly like 'I KNOW!! IT'S TERRIBLE I HATE IT!!'

[shadowslipping]

It's something she's grown used to. She's done well to banish the hate for it as much as she could since then, but even now it's still hard.

There is no banter from Yuume while she works. She is silent, and careful, and dedicated to the task. These are people, even if they're committing atrocity. They're people, and from how it was in the city, she suspects many don't even realize how grave a crime they've been committing.

Not that it makes it any less terrible.

Yuume waits in silence within the dark, eyes and ears open for her companion to arrive- or for anyone else as well. Better to stay hidden until then, and not attract attention.

[darkassassin]

When she arrives, it is holding the harpoon and a long length of rope over her shoulder. And she seems particularly pleased about how things are working out.

She doesn't see Yuume, of course. But she pauses, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Ah," she says, and then points upwards. "I believe there is a hatch, forward of where we are? Let us go up top."

[shadowslipping]

As she's determined, Yuume is there- and slipping out. "There should be, if this ship is built with any sense. Let's go then," she agrees, sticking to foot travel for now. They'll have to hurry if they don't want to be stuck in here after all. But things do seem to be working out thus far.

...

She dares not say that aloud, if she wants it to keep going that way. Saying it aloud always ruins it.

[darkassassin]

She finds, personally, these things are a lot easier when there aren't Jedi swanning about ruining her efforts. She follows after Yuume, ascending through the ship. She hums to herself, enjoying it all, slowly tying one end of the length of rope to the harpoon.

"It will be good to be in the open air. This ship stinks more than any I have ever encountered."

[shadowslipping]

"Agreed. These things were definitely crafted with animal matter," she mutters, practically gagging. "I see you've gotten a bit of a souvenir while we're at it," Yuume adds somewhat conversationally. Nice harpoon. "Did that get thrown at you at one point?"

[darkassassin]

"I did," she replied, with a wide smile on her face, "one man chose to stand and fight. I've never had a harpoon thrown at me before."

"They say," she added, "where I am from, that the carapaces of giant space wasps were used as ships - giant ore haulers. The difference, of course, was that the carapace was cleaned out first."

[shadowslipping]

"Hmn! Hardly the smartest way to get a moment of courage, is it?" she snorts, unable to keep from smirking herself.

"Wasps though...that's fascinating. Some merit to it as well, if they were boring animals," she adds with a hum. If tiny, tiny wasps back home could dig into solid wood...well, a ship sized wasp could probably be devastating, that was for sure. Yuume is quick to pull a face as they come to the hatch, however. "Unlike all of this..."

Whale ships! Of all the things! They could have at least tanned the skin or something!

[darkassassin]

"It is wonderfully stupid, yes," she replied.

She was eager for the fresh air that flowed in the moment Yuume opened the hatch, following the other woman up. She also, in passing, made sure to connect the other end of the rope to the hatch itself on the way up.

Up there, of course, the wind would whip around them, but at least the stench was gone. And she looked out, and smiled.

"There," he said, pointing. About fifty feet away was the last airship in line. She offered the harpoon to Yuume.

"How accurately can you throw?" Because she'll be concentrating on keeping it in the air with her powers.

[shadowslipping]

And up...

And out. Yuume can't help but sigh as they come into the fresh air, eager to be rid of the stink from below. Blinking as she's offered the harpoon, she carefully takes it- tossing it up and down in her hand as if it were nothing but a stick as she tests the weight.

She looks across to the last ship in the line. "With this...Accurately enough, provided the wind doesn't give us a surprise. I should be able to strike something sturdy enough to hold it." It's a bit of a guess on the best spot to hit for their purposes, but admittedly a much stronger one now that they've spent all that time sabotaging this one.

[darkassassin]

"Wind will not be a factor. Aim, and throw. I will see to the rest."

It needs two for a guarantee. And she doesn't feel like taking the chance.

"I would recommend all speed," she added.

[shadowslipping]

She does nothing but nod, and take aim. Narrowing her eyes behind the goggles, she draws her arm back and launches-

There!

[darkassassin]

She stood behind her and guided it, exerting her through the Force. She relaxed with a sigh when it struck home.

"Time to go," she said, leaping out as far as she could, grabbing onto the rope and starting to move hand over hand towards the other airship.

[shadowslipping]

"Aaah." Off they go then- it's a matter of time before the one they were just on starts to fail, so best to hurry. She'll be following behind, with the same hand over hand method.

[darkassassin]

As she neared the other airship, she reached out a hand, aiming at the distant helmsman - working to plant a suggestion in his mind. Give them another minute, then to pull out of formation, away from the others.

Hopefully, that would be enough. Else they'd have a real race on their hands.

And then she was off again, grimacing at the strain on her muscles, moving handhold by handhold with whatever speed she could manage.

[shadowslipping]

She wants to ask what it is that Asajj just did- she knows something just happened- there's a reason she paused like that, absolutely- but she can't tell what.

This isn't the time to ask however- they need to get to the other side, lest they simply tire and fall after all. So with a muted grunt, she carries onward, teeth clenched under her mask.

[darkassassin]

The moment she can let go and drop to the surface of the next airship she does so, grabbing on with practiced ease. It's not the first time she's had to do something like this.

Not by a long shot. She sighs, in satisfaction.