Setting
A simple little sand crawler that once served only as a transport vehicle before it was demolished by bandits. NOMAD picked her up later and slapped scrap metal wherever there was a hole. Filled her up with an able-bodied crew and booted them back out into the wastes to find out what happened to the settlement where it was headed before it was attacked.
Minimap
northwest |
north |
northeast |
west |
You are here. |
east |
southwest |
south |
southeast |
The Breaker is a part of 
Crankshaft.
3 Characters Here
Denis Saint-Genevieve [1] Negotiator to the world; Logistician for the crew; Combat engineer to our enemies
Toji Okami [0] "My name's Toji Okami, Remember That!!" A young bandit who's seen the light.
Adalyn Reyes [0] "This is time for lunch, isn't it? Come on, there's nothing to be afraid of."
Start Character Here »
Vance drowsed in his seat, letting the drone of the electrical systems wash over his exhausted frame. Zip remained on the bridge as well; but had long ago settled into a long nap. Zip even slept insolently; he sprawled in his chair, his head propped up against the headrest using his duster as an impromptu pillow. He hadn't asked Vance's opinion or clearance; he simply had set himself up and dropped out.
Which actually suited Vance fine. About an hour after Zip had fallen asleep, Vance's comcircuit pinged.
"Bridge, Vance."
"Navigator, this is Engineering." Saint-Genevieve's voice was hoarse, but strong. "Leslie has me confined to Medical Bay, and I've only got a few minutes before this damn circuit cuts me out again, so fill me in quickly on our status."
"Roger, Engineer!" Vance said, feeling torn between relief at the Engineer's desire to assume control of things once more, and a keen disappointment that he was no longer in entire command of the bridge. "We took a pretty good beating. I mean, we gave better than we got, and we came out ahead, but I'm afraid a lot of May's people are going to be repairing things that hadn't even had the new knocked off of em before they were broken."
"Yeah, it happens." Saint-Genevieve huffed. "How do we look from your perspective?"
"We're mobile; I've been standing by before moving out allowing our folks on the bled to collect salvage, casualties, prisoners, and jetsam before we roll. We've picked up a second DuneTrain; formerly the Razorwind Reaver Vessel Dune Carnage. It's still mobile; it had some minor drive train failure. I've moved parts from our spares bin over to the Dune Skull 'train; their folks should have the prize under tread in approximately two hours."
"You can see our readouts as well as I can, and can make more out of them as well. Generally we're Partially Mission Capable and Phase II combat ready. Mayh's still out, I'm told; I think Leslie's gone to check on her. She might even be Tanked right now; I think one of her folks is running things for the time being. Anyway, since you weren't around to give me your opinion, I prioritized Ariadne's repairs to first make us mobile, secondly to bring up the easy-to-fix secondary weapons systems. Then, priority goes to sensor feeds and general armor repair. We've got a blind spot where numbers seven and nine sensor arrays were fried by the Walker, and a pretty severe gash on that side where those systems used to be. We're living now on skyskimmer drone external feeds but they won't last long in the storm. We've got a few stray Venom-worms in the datasystem now; Ariadne's working on getting them removed -- courtesy of our mystery AI attacker."
Denis' voice cut in. "No, I saw the priorities you set; they'll do. Not the way I would have done them, but you've got the chair now, so I'll live with it. I can't get up and about yet, so I'm working on guiding the slave systems to reconstruct an engineering node in Bay Nine. I'll work with your priority list in mind; if I decide to change anything I'll call you before I do just to make sure it'll work for you. Move when you need to. Now, how about you folks up there? Maybe you should start rotating folks to sleep. How long've you been up there?"
"Way ahead of you, boss." Vance said. "Kayce should be resting now; Zip's sleeping here. I don't need him at the moment, but if I do, he's here at hand. To tell you the truth, I'm nodding off and on here just to keep myself sharp. Ariadne's been instructed to wake me if anything dire happens, or needs my attention. Once Kayce gets back I'll put her in charge and bed down."
The com panel was silent for a moment, then, "All right. Run that plan by the Good Doctor when he checks in. He'll probably give you something to help you sleep more soundly. Just don't let him hook anything up to you."
Vance frowned, but decided not to push the point. "Roger."
"Aw, geez, I'm about out of time. Engineer out. I'll check in in about an hour. If you swap out just send word down through Ariadne. I don't want this damn system to get the wrong idea."
"All right. Navigator out." Vance snapped the comm system closed, wondering what the hell his Engineer was talking about.
Which actually suited Vance fine. About an hour after Zip had fallen asleep, Vance's comcircuit pinged.
"Bridge, Vance."
"Navigator, this is Engineering." Saint-Genevieve's voice was hoarse, but strong. "Leslie has me confined to Medical Bay, and I've only got a few minutes before this damn circuit cuts me out again, so fill me in quickly on our status."
"Roger, Engineer!" Vance said, feeling torn between relief at the Engineer's desire to assume control of things once more, and a keen disappointment that he was no longer in entire command of the bridge. "We took a pretty good beating. I mean, we gave better than we got, and we came out ahead, but I'm afraid a lot of May's people are going to be repairing things that hadn't even had the new knocked off of em before they were broken."
"Yeah, it happens." Saint-Genevieve huffed. "How do we look from your perspective?"
"We're mobile; I've been standing by before moving out allowing our folks on the bled to collect salvage, casualties, prisoners, and jetsam before we roll. We've picked up a second DuneTrain; formerly the Razorwind Reaver Vessel Dune Carnage. It's still mobile; it had some minor drive train failure. I've moved parts from our spares bin over to the Dune Skull 'train; their folks should have the prize under tread in approximately two hours."
"You can see our readouts as well as I can, and can make more out of them as well. Generally we're Partially Mission Capable and Phase II combat ready. Mayh's still out, I'm told; I think Leslie's gone to check on her. She might even be Tanked right now; I think one of her folks is running things for the time being. Anyway, since you weren't around to give me your opinion, I prioritized Ariadne's repairs to first make us mobile, secondly to bring up the easy-to-fix secondary weapons systems. Then, priority goes to sensor feeds and general armor repair. We've got a blind spot where numbers seven and nine sensor arrays were fried by the Walker, and a pretty severe gash on that side where those systems used to be. We're living now on skyskimmer drone external feeds but they won't last long in the storm. We've got a few stray Venom-worms in the datasystem now; Ariadne's working on getting them removed -- courtesy of our mystery AI attacker."
Denis' voice cut in. "No, I saw the priorities you set; they'll do. Not the way I would have done them, but you've got the chair now, so I'll live with it. I can't get up and about yet, so I'm working on guiding the slave systems to reconstruct an engineering node in Bay Nine. I'll work with your priority list in mind; if I decide to change anything I'll call you before I do just to make sure it'll work for you. Move when you need to. Now, how about you folks up there? Maybe you should start rotating folks to sleep. How long've you been up there?"
"Way ahead of you, boss." Vance said. "Kayce should be resting now; Zip's sleeping here. I don't need him at the moment, but if I do, he's here at hand. To tell you the truth, I'm nodding off and on here just to keep myself sharp. Ariadne's been instructed to wake me if anything dire happens, or needs my attention. Once Kayce gets back I'll put her in charge and bed down."
The com panel was silent for a moment, then, "All right. Run that plan by the Good Doctor when he checks in. He'll probably give you something to help you sleep more soundly. Just don't let him hook anything up to you."
Vance frowned, but decided not to push the point. "Roger."
"Aw, geez, I'm about out of time. Engineer out. I'll check in in about an hour. If you swap out just send word down through Ariadne. I don't want this damn system to get the wrong idea."
"All right. Navigator out." Vance snapped the comm system closed, wondering what the hell his Engineer was talking about.
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