Guns And Flames, Part 1

[Hardencairnom]

FIVE DAYS AGO

"In recent transmissions, it has been confirmed at seven ships have disappeared in the space of 48 hours. I assume that no-one here knows what's happened to them... We have not received any transmissions as of late... well, we haven't heard anything at all, except, two beacon signals have recently been received by Zion Radar, possibly indicating two ships set out to free more minds that are calling for help, or phoney transmissions set up by machines."

Commander Briggs was standing befroe the council. He was tall, proud and ageing.
"I request that we set out the entire navy to investigate, because this is a state of emergency and we cannot risk people going through hell dying from it."
"Thank you commander," a counciller spoke. "But by sending out the entire navy, you're just putting more people in hell than there originally are, or were."
Commander Briggs sighed. He didn't like that word, were. It was a term meaning that some of his men had died, and he couldn't even hear that word being spoken. He wouldn't accept it. "Well then I request fifteen ships be sent out."
"I can't do that, Briggs. We'll get mashed. Remember: This is a war."
"I'm aware of that."
"Then act aware."
Briggs took a deep breath and took a seat.
"Is anyone else wishing to... add... to this case?"
There was a long silence. Briggs stood up again. He'd thought it through by now. "I request at most five ships to investigate then, if you will not accept my navy dispatch."
"That's more like it, commander. Now you're actually acting as if you know what you're doing."
Briggs let out at least a smile, then returned to his seat.
"The council is asking for at most five ships to locate these mysterious transmissions. Are there five among you who would answer this call?"
There was another long silence. But one man stood up. "Captain Spartan of the Stormfire will answer the council's call," he said. He was in his thirties, but ageing.
"Thank you, Captain Spartan. Please take a seat."
"Yes sir." Spartan sat back down.
There was an even longer pause this time. But another captain stood up. "Captain Jass of the Anubis will answer the council's call."
"Thank you, Captain Jass. Please take a seat."
"Yes sir." Jass sat back down.
There was probably about five minutes of silence and no-one had spoken.
"Is there no other?"
"We've been sitting here for several mionutes and we haven't had another ship answer."
"Ten seconds to answer."
A few seconds passed, still no answer.
"Thank you, Captains Spartan and Jass. Commanders, you have your orders. Both voluenteering crews report to duty immediately. This council is hereby ajourned."
The counciller picked up a mallet and slammed it down on a wooden panel, hard. There was an extremely loud bang that echoed around the room...

FOUR DAYS AGO

Spartan looked over to Ty. "Do you think we're going to make it through the tunnel?" he asked.
"I don't think so," Ty replied. "But I do suspect serious sentinel activity."
"Well that's a good thing." Spartan smiled to Ty. "Because we'll be able to create a diversion for the sentinels, allowing the Anubis to move past slowly. While they do that, we can set off the EMP and kill every one of those scum-machines. Come to think of it, it's our ancestors' fault we were plugged in to the Matrix in the first place. Hell, I wouldn't know why they even did that stuff to the machines. And I guess that the 'soon after' effects with Zion and the free humans is kind of stupid too. We're at war, and just because of our ancestors."
"But we are still loyal to our ancestors, right?" Ty asked.
"Well, depends on what you mean by 'loyal'."

Jass looked over. He had to be carfeful he didn't alert machines. He passed through a narrow chasm of pipes, still piloting extremely carefully. "...Everything will be alright..." he muttered under his breath, "...just keep moving and you won't get spotted... ...being spotted is a bad thing that can happen at any time... ...any time could be now, but just keep calm... ...everything will be alright..." He kept on repeating that over until he was through the narrow sewer. The ship passed without a trace like a snake slithering silently through the jungle sneaking up on its prey.
But there was a noise. Another ship was creaking on the surface close to where he was. Sentinels passed overhead, again the ship not being noticed. a few seconds later an EMP went off close by.
Two crew members came in. "What the hell was that?" the first crew member asked.
"An EMP," Jass responded. "The Stormfire's doing good."
"Very good indeed."
On the scanner, sentinels were falling everywhere...

THREE DAYS AGO

Jass was sleeping in his quarters. The alarm sounded which alerted him immediately. Running to the Operating station he immediately saw PROXIMITY ALERT. Without hesitation he began charging the EMP. Then he climbed up a ladder in to the cockpit.
The scanner displayed sentinel swarms. "Holy *beep*..."
Jass slid back down the lader to the bottom level. The others had already opened the back ramp and were running out. But it was too late. The ship exploded in a nuclear fashion leaving blue flames with lightning bolts consuming the rest of the ship.

On the Stormfire, Ty saw the blue flame ahead. Next thing: The lights shot out. The ship was shut down.
Scared, he went to start the ship but nothing happened. He kept on trying, but nothing even happened. The radar wasn't working, the ship wouldn't work, the beacon was shut down, basically everything was shut off.
A set of blue emergency lights switched on. Ty ran across a bridge down a set of steps to find two crew members jacked in. Even the life-reading panels were switched off.
Spartan ran across, along with an operator. "Is he okay?" he said, putting two fingers on the man's neck in a fashion to check his pulse. He let go a few seconds later and looked at Ty in a grave fashion. He already knew what had happened before it as said: He was dead...

ONE DAY AGO

"Look!" Ty shouted. "We've been two days without power and the only weapons we have are the Electro-guns downstairs. Why don't you say we leave?"
"This is my ship," Spartan shouted back, "Not yours. And if you want to go, that's fine by me."
Ty smashed the ground with his foot and walked off. He needed some time alone, leaving Spartan, who shook his head and ran up a set of stairs, going to his quarters.
Ty was in deep thought for about an hour. He eventually came up with something and ran to the engine room. Quickly fiddling around for a while, he switched wire with wire and part with part. He was the engineer for the day, but he couldn't do it alone.
Spartan came down with a sandwich. "I got you something to eat," he said. "I also want to talk to you."
"Yeah I need to say that I'm sorry," Ty said.
"I know this is a tough time for you, but... this is my ship. You're using your mechanical skills to try and fix this ship, I guess I'll help."
"Thanks man," Ty said,l patting his hand on Spartan's shoulder. "You're more than just a captain to me, you're a big friend. Seriously, you are and I would never deny that."
Spartan nodded, accepting his apology. Then he got to work.

TODAY

"Sir!" A Lieutenant ran in to Brigg's quarters. "We got one blip on the move."
"Good," Briggs said, getting up.
"I also have some bad news. The Stormfire and the Anubis suddenly disappeared about three days ago."
"Goddamnit," Briggs was furious almost immediately. "Why didn't anyone tell me about this!?"
"I'm sorry sir, but we can;t let you know about the deaths. It makes you act how you are acting now."
Briggs paused for a few seconds. "I guess you're right... now tell me about this blip, show me."
"Yes sir," The lieutenant began to walk away. "Follow me."
Briggs followed the lieutenant. The commander's door slammed shut.

[Logan]

Cool opening dude. Could I ask you a favor though? If you kinda read my profile, maybe you could make a few changes there.

[Logan]

On second thought, forget it, I'll roll with you

[Hardencairnom]

Okay... I need someone to post for the Horus. The Horus is currently en route to the Pegasus...

[Veana]

Vea sat at the control panels of the Horus. They were on their way to the Pegasus and had been travelling for over 23 hours now. In that tine Vea hadn't slept nor eaten. Something bad was going on. Lately they had picked up some transmissions from Zion. Two ships had disappeared, so far there was no sign of them. And it worried her, this was more than strange, the captains of those ships were one of the more experienced ones. Vea let her thoughts go and closed her eyes.

[Hardencairnom]

Seth sat back and pulled a switch. The ship couldn't move or set off an EMP. The only things it could do were shoot and jack people in.
He sat back in front of the operating controls. Seeing the code just made him shake his head. "Jesus christ," he said. "Please help us."
A crew member, Fuzz, quite young, came up to Seth. "You okay?" he asked.
"Don't worry fuzz," Seth responded, "I'll be fine."
"Just making sure. Do you even realise that our ship is sitting still and we haven't been attacked?"
"Yeah, I'd be surprised."
Fuzz put a cup of water next to Seth. "Drink it," he said. "It'll keep you hydrated."
Seth looked at the cup, picked it up and started drinking. He put the cup down again. It was completely empty.
Fuzz picked up the mug and walked off, but he hesitated and walked back to the operator's panel. "You do know that the alarm isn't active, right?" he asked.
"No,-" Seth quickly got to his feet and ran to a ladder.

[Norph]

"Whats up Ve'?" Lason came up behind her and slapped her gently on the back of the head. Lason walked around her and leant it, looking at the Matrix code

[Veana]

Vea opened her eyes to look at Lason. "Not much," she answered him. "There's no sign of the Pegasus yet, and the Matrix code hasnt been showing me any interesting things. About two hours ago there was a blip in the code and on the radar, I couldnt trace what it was but I think it probably was a minor glitch in the wires."

[Norph]

"Should've checked into it" Lason said, still staring at the screen. After a few moments he jumped back into a chair and wriggled arund in it before getting comfortable

"Haven't we had anything? No messages? Nothing?...We should just go back to Zion"

[Hardencairnom]

Fuzz was already in the enginnering room. Seth was drinking a cup of water while Fuzz worked. But images flashed in Seth's mind...

The school bell rang. A boy, around 15, grabbed a skateboard and a small matchbox. He opened the box. Inside there were three packets of cannabis.
"What ya got there?" a voice asked. It was very senior, unmistakeably a teacher's voice.
"Herbs," the boy responded. "I go herb-picking down the river on sundays."
The teacher looked at the boy as if he was lying. He took a packet from the matchbox. "Is this marijuana?" he asked.
The boy shook his head. "There are herbs down the river and I'm being serious."
"It's true," Another boy spoke.
The teacher looked at the other boy. "Are you saying this because you're his friend and trying to get him out of trouble, or because it's true and you want to give me proof?"
"I am saying this for both reasons. As a matter of fact, there are herb branches there. Want me to show you?"
The other boy's face was serious. The teacher's face was questioning. "Meet me at the office in five minutes. And Carl, I don't want to see that matchbox again." With that, he left...

Seth shouted, dropped the cup and jumped towards a ladder. Fuzz immediately turned around, seeing Seth panting. "What happened?" Fuzz asked, very concerned.
"I don't know," Seth responded.
Fuzz shook his head. "You've been having these... flash-backs for about a month. Don't you think you should rest a little bit?"
Seth shook his head.
"Let me take you to the medical bay."

ooc: Seth will have quite a few hillucinations during the course of the RP.

[Logan]

"This..." Spartan began, trying to respark the engine "****ing... BLOWS!"

Spartan kicked the engine, doing nothing more than hurting his foot. Cursing, he tossed his wrench to the side, sitting down and leaning his head against the wall. He tried to think of how to proceed, but nothing came to mind, and he didn't want to think on it to hard.

"Ty" he said to his ship mate sitting next to him "Look, I know the guy's kind of scary, but I need you to feed the prisoner. He freaks me out, he freaks you out"

Spartan smiled.

"But I'm captain"
ooc:
I AM going to bring in the guy I originally created... and not Hard, or Veana, or anyone can stop me!

[Norph]

OOC: Who is the prisoner?

[Veana]

"I did. I ran some programs to clean out glitches in the soft and hardware, there was nothing there. But there's not much I can do besides that." Vea said and touched some panels to bring up the report. "There's nothing unusual there. And no, we havent had anything. No word from the Pegasus, Zion or one of the other ships." She frowned and sat back in her chair. "Don't you think this is..odd?"

[Norph]

"Hey, we live underground, in one city, machines have taken over, one man saved everyone...EVERYTHING is odd, here" Lason replied, there was a long silence before Lason spoke again

"Yeah, yeah that is weird, you'd think there would be something"

[Logan]

ooc: Managed to get on, the prisoner is my guy... the one I created, just with a different name.