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Pride Goeth - Printable Version

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Pride Goeth - Amy West - 06-15-2025

Tijuana Freeport, Vespucci
Afternoon


A lone Rhino sporting a Legion moniker departed from the station, its course marked as somewhere within the cloud to the south. West was technically at the helm, though she left much of the actual piloting to her VI assistant, MELS.
Officially logged as an emissions reading flight, West had the ship's vector plotted for the Leniex Cloud, bright and orange, looming to the south. Apart from her aboard the vessel was a Zoner, an expert navigator named Scott McBride. He wasn't part of Prometheus, and had no intention either. Since the days of the Remnant, West had relied on him to provide course data, supply maps, jump hole prediction readings, phase alignment charts, and even some mathematical calculations for some of the Insurgency's wayward vessels, each of these instilling while not a true friendship, a trusting bond instead. He may not have been of the Legion, but each took the word of the other at face value.

The trip from Tijuana had been quiet, both outside the ship and within, until Scott finally broke the silence.
"Y'know, I don't think I've ever actually asked what your deal with this thing is."
He looked away from the small electrical board he was working on, turning towards her.

West was back down, wedged under a small probe she'd brought along for the flight, going through wiring. She shifted her head to the side just enough to eye him.
"Is that supposed to be a question?" she asked, curt as usual.

"You keep saying this thing, whatever we're out here looking for is 'it', this 'Arcturus', but I've never actually gotten a clear answer for why we're out here looking for it."
He put his tools down, a look of rather deep curiosity about his face. He'd get these from time to time, but this was the first with regards to one of West's ships.

She let out a sigh. "Because I put a fuckload of work into her, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna have all that time wasted."
She shifted back over to working on the probe, continuing. "Besides, if it's going after random civvy bases, it's a public hazard, and I don't need my name plastered onto a public hazard."

Scott chuckled.
"Oh, of course. Your image is too important to let a bucket of bolts go around ruining it."

"Exactly."

"If you were so invested in this thing, then why are we chasing it? Why wasn't it part of your little gang in Coronado?"

"Ask myself that every day. Couldn't take command of her during Duskstorm; Had to make sure the grand ol' girl made it out lest some people have a shitfit. Just had to hope she made the rendezvous."

As they neared the Leniex Cloud, Scott became more and more uneasy.
"Cloud's getting pretty close. Not so sure going in there's too smart."
West practically leaped to her feet at mention of the cloud's proximity, clamping the probe's port closed before taking her seat at the ship's controls. Scott, caught somewhat off guard, reeled in his seat.
"Jesus. Amy, I hope you know what you're doing here. I'm not taking any of the blame if that thing spaces us."

West scoffed, flicking several switches on the control panel.
"Relax, and get your damn EV suit on," she said, reaching for her own.

As the two donned their protective gear, the cloud's feedback lashed out, signs of an unusually strong magnetic storm within its walls. While the dampeners did their job to an extent, the two were still jostled around like cans in a camping cooler. Turbulence from the storm rattled the ship as West took the controls again, Scott manning his station at the cabin's perpendicular station.
"Strong feedback. Cloud's not happy today. MELS, you still there?"

Confirmed.

"Good. Start compiling readings. Scott," she said, looking back at him, "See if you can't find something in all this shit."

"Right."
The turbulence was strong, but nothing unusual for the Leniex Cloud. This was all part of the defense system, brought to the Legion of old entirely free of charge by Mother Nature. None of this would have phased any of the Legion's ships in the day, but a lone freighter? Night and day.
"Think I've got something," Scott said, trying to keep to his seat as the ship kept rattling. "Large contact, might be an asteroid, though that profile is making me question."

"Lemme see," West said, pulling his readings onto one of her smaller dash screens. "Definitely not a 'roid, and this kind of storm would be perfect to mask itself."
She flicked a switch on her dash, turning a small dial far to the right and inputting some commands into her console.

ping.accessuser
initiate:syslocal.deepscan
code.transfer:daylily.outback
request:status.confirm?..


Scott looked over to her, eyes perplexed behind his EV suit's helmet glass.
"Are you seriously pinging inside a magnetic storm? You realize that's not going anywhere with all this going on?"

West kept checking her instrumentation, eyeing the feed. After a moment, Scott took a breath, but she interjected before he could get a word off.
"Some of the most advanced sensor equipment I had on Leniex was on that ship. If she's here, she'll pick it up," she retorted, ".. just gotta get lucky.."

The storm appeared to begin dialing back in severity, the jostling subsiding somewhat as the storm started passing on. Her ping into the cloud kept chiming out every few seconds, however, and not without feedback. After the fifth drop, West noticed movement in the cloud's electrical flashes.
"There," she said, pointing out the cockpit window at an object in the distance. It was large, but so were the 'roids floating all around them. A closer look betrayed the fact that this one was moving.
Towards them.

West's eyes opened fully, her heart dropping somewhat.
"Fuck.."

Scott barked from behind her. "That thing's coming at us! Kick the engines over and book it!" West did no such thing, perhaps enamored by prospects fully enclosed within her own mind.

After a moment, she came back.
"MELS, open a channel. Get me a backdoor, authorization AARDVARK."

Scott reached over, grabbing her shoulder and turning her towards him.
"Are you fucking crazy?! Big ass thing heading our way, and you wanna hack it?" He threw his hand in the air, "Fuckin' techies, man. Wanna probe every line they can get."
She eyed him for a brief moment before turning back towards the window.

"MELS, what've you got?"

Access granted. Awaiting Input.

West did a sort of jerk with her arm, muttering an audibly cocky 'yes'.
"Request docking maneuver. Try and establish link with CRANE. See if it's still there."

Affirmed. Submitting input.

Scott had effectively become a backseat driver to this, knowing West's ambition had taken over.
"That another one of your intelligences?"

"Something I cooked up back in the day to alleviate some of the administrative strain. Managed internal computational issues, scanning, cyberwarfare, the works." She turned her head towards him, though not enough to look back at him. "Nothing as good as what I have now. MELS would tear CRANE a new asshole with the upgrades I got from Rev's gang, but good enough for back then."

Docking request granted. Link to central system unconfirmed. Verified Asset CRANE still operational.

The ship lurched forward, still jangling from the storm, which was steadily dissipating. As the ship moved to land aboard the ship they'd found, it became clear that this was indeed the once venerable Arcturus. Hull blasted in countless locations, an entire section of the ship's central mass missing, exposing decks to the void of space.
West and Scott watched from the cockpit, her mouth agape at the sight. To think her once cherished ship now sulked the waves of space like this, her crew probably long since dead or gone.

"How the hell is this thing still functioning?" Scott remarked, taken aback by the sheer amount of damage the vessel had taken.

"They didn't call this thing Invincible for nothing. There," she said, pointing to the exterior near Decks 7-9. Visible were sealant fields, used to prevent the loss of atmosphere to hull ruptures, "The fields are still active, which means her reactor must still be going. That's definitely promising."

Scott quipped. "Not the word I'd use.."
Both were snapped back to the situation at hand as they neared the docking bay. As they eased in, the ship didn't appear to slow, the tractor beam dragging them careening into the hangar bay.
"Why aren't we slowing down?!"

"I don't know! Grab something, this shit'll be r-"


RE: Pride Goeth - Amy West - 06-15-2025

Dreadnought Arcturus, Vespucci
Evening


The Rhino laid against the deck of the hangar bay, the wall it had slammed into presenting a nice freighter-sized dent. The whole room was a complete mess, with scattered service mech wreckage littered amongst the shredded pieces of the Arcturus' strike craft. The hangar door began to grind shut, debris caught in the machinery interfering with the nominally smooth operation. On a ship this busted, this damaged, it was wishful thinking.

West awoke to alerts from her EV suit, her onboard VI breathing a metaphorical sigh of relief as she began moving.

Affirmed. User West is functional. Beginning tactical countermeasures and local area scan.

West groaned, her body aching from the impact. Her suit had taken the brunt of the force, but that didn't stop the body aches and the very probable concussion. She looked around, the freighter's cockpit trashed, the glass shattered, and Scott nowhere to be seen. She stood up, gripping the glass of her EV helmet.
"MELS, ship status.."

Vessel unresponsive. Attempts to ignite reactor core unsuccessful. Damage likely catastrophic.

"Figured.. where's Scott..?"
She kept looking around the cockpit, her head splitting as the migraine set in now that she was awake. She tapped a few buttons on her wrist panel, administering a round of painkillers which soon began easing the strain.

User Scott unresponsive. Location unknown.

She gave the cockpit one last lookover, before calling out.
"Scott..!" she yelled, quickly wincing at the sharp rush of pain to her head. She made her way out of the cockpit, through the number of damaged halls inside the Rhino until she hit the lower gunnery station. From there, she kicked open a hatch, stepping out into the hangar bay. The entire room was largely devoid of light, with only a deep orange hue from the Leniex Cloud seeping in from the outside.
She called out again, "Scott!", before noticing a dim light in the path of the Rhino's wreckage attached to a dark lump on the floor of the hangar. West bolted towards it, stumbling at points in her haste and from the spikes of pain as her body kept adjusting to the myriad of things effecting it. She fell to the ground next to the body, clicking on her palm light before shining it at the head, Scott's face staring back in lifeless agony. His helmet glass had shattered, likely from the impact, a short but brutal exposure to the airless vacuum of the hangar bay sealing his fate.
".. dammit.." she muttered, shining her palm light over the rest of Scott's body before clicking it off, clenching her hand. "Sorry, Scott.."
She wasn't good at solemn, even alone she held back tears. Years of work, countless all-nighters combing through data he'd provided. He may not have been Legion, but he'd done more for her and the cause than some life-long fighters.

Warning: Unknown organic lifeforms present within hangar bay. Initiating hangar bay venting.

This blared into West's suit, jolting her back to the present. The hangar doors soon began grinding open again, the light of the Leniex Cloud bathing the hangar as the doors opened.
"CRANE! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she cried out, a sudden burst of anger numbing any pain from her injuries.

Status: Nominal. All unauthorized personnel are asked to disembark the vessel via the nearest exit.

West stood up, looking around the hangar bay, her eyes scanning for any sign of a working terminal. Towards the rear of the bay were the access doors to the maintenance section of the hangar, where she'd caught sight of the faint glint of a screen.
"MELS, give me an opening. Pull out whatever BS you have to and bypass CRANE's firewall." She began moving towards the access doors, her pace somewhat dictated by her pain tolerance. Rage was a hell of an anesthetic, but it only worked so well.
Approaching the terminal near the doors, itself part of the security checkpoint she'd had installed for her own mind's sake pre-Duskstorm, she clicked on the screen, her eyes flooded with memories from a different time.

Warning: Unauthorized user detected. Initiating countermeasures.

The screen flickered before the terminal burst, knocking West back. Her EV suit took some of the blast, though it didn't help the headache she was developing.
"Fuckin'-a.. MELS, any luck?"

User CRANE is attempting to combat my firewall break attempts. It has segmented priority user control to the central computer core. Recommend User West attempt backdoor action there.

West stepped towards the access door, gripping the emergency latch and pulling it aside, cracking the door open. Through the portal she'd find the maintenance section bathed in an eerie red light, and the exit to the main access hallway running the length of the ship directly opposite the holding platform. As she crossed over the platform, she noticed several strikecraft on the level below, trashed and wrecked. Through the door, she began making her way down the hallway, her mind regularly going back and forth from the present to the past.
"MELS, get me a map. Calculate shortest path to the core." Her visor soon lit up, the corner of her HUD showing a clear pathway. As she traversed the halls, she would occasionally pass by bodies, some wearing jumpsuits, some wearing full tactical gear. She knew if this ended with the ship in her hands she'd have a hell of a job going through each of them.
In a way, that itself was a small comfort.

Her HUD lit up, but soon cut off just outside of the core. West gripped the emergency lever for the door.
"MELS, status."
Five seconds, no response.
"MELS. Are you there?" Still no response.
West gripped the lever tight as she yanked it aside, the door cracking open. Inside, the core glowed as if it had been untouched for the past five years. On the ground were two bodies, desiccated and inanimate. She stepped over them, pulling the screen down almost instinctively from the central column they were laid next to.
Abruptly and without warning, her comms were filled with an almost debilitating static, causing her to grip the column and nearly making her legs give way. She jerked her hand up, whacking the side of her EV helmet, and in an instant the static had ceased.

She stood there for a moment, leaning against the column's control panel. Her head felt like a hammer was whacking against it every second or so, throbbing coupled with the pain across her body, though she remained upright.
".. what the fuck.."


RE: Pride Goeth - Amy West - 06-15-2025

Dreadnought Arcturus, Vespucci
Evening


root.access
HL.v014:stream.link.verified
initializing.connection:standby
core.access:granted/verify.user
user.link:A.West-LC01
access:granted


West let out a pained sign as the console gave in, the screen flooding with meaningless characters as the connection was established. She was really beginning to hate herself for all this flashy filler from before the fall. Then again, at the time she likely never imagined something like this would ever crop up.
Wishful thinking on the part of her past self.
".. c'mon you fucker.. show me the goods.." she muttered, still clinging to the console, every moment a bid to keep herself upright. Determination was slowly taking the place of adrenaline, but she had finite supplies of both.
Security code AARDVARK, central node selection, initiate full diagnosis mode. With a rather unceremonious screen tap, the core lit up a bright orange, the processing lights flashing a slow pulsed red.

Analysis, User CRANE unresponsive. User West's doing?

West let out a small sigh, followed by a brief chuckle.
"Yep.. glad to see you're alright.."

User CRANE initiated localization cascade. System functions were locked within central computer core, signal unresponsive.

She pushed herself off the console, grabbing the frame for one of the core's numerous computation racks. Her strength began to wane, the threat gone for now. With her mind wandering, the sharp pain of her injuries began to step back in.
"Gah.."

Reading significant bodily distress. Painkiller administration not possible: insufficient supply.

West leaned against the rack, sweat pouring down her neck, her legs barely able to keep her up.
"Yeah.. I gathered.. that.."
She blinked for a moment, thoughts racing through her mind occasionally interrupted by the throbbing.
".. medical.. mark location of nearest.." Her HUD updated with a course plotted. Down the hall a ways, and up one deck. Perhaps too far for her legs, but determination had kept her going so far. No reason it'd give in now.

West pushed herself off the rack towards the door, gripping her helmet at she shuffled on through the doorway and down the hall.
"I.. want you to keep access to the core open.. Make sure CRANE doesn't disable diagnosis mode.."

Affirmed. Two more sectors, then up access flight 37 to Deck 6.

She kept moving, her head a cocktail of pain, anger, and fear. As she reached the stairway access, West reached for the emergency lever just before the door slid open. The stairway access shaft was dark, with a very faint red hue bathing the stairs just enough to see. She gripped the rails as she began scaling the steps, one after the other, each a banquet of strain on her aching muscles. Grip, yank, step, repeat, each one bringing her closer to that door at the top of the flight. The small staircase may have only been a dozen or so steps, but each felt like its own Everest.
At the last, she had run out of guardrail to grab, and instead gripped the emergency lever on the door, pulling herself up the last step until she'd made it. The door slid open as she caught her breath, groaning as she stepped through the doorway. Deck 6 was much the same as the one below, with several bodies scattered around and emergency lights flickering after years without maintenance. Before her, however, was the door to secondary medical. In reality, it was little more than a triage center, but inside were enough amenities to provide some measure of treatment.

The door opened, and West stepped on in. Between her and the medbay proper was a small airlock, designed to prevent loss of air pressure, as well as contain the spread of pathogens. A Libertonian design originally only afforded to the primary medical center aboard the ship. West had modified each of the ship's medical areas to house this feature, though whether it was out of care or paranoia was something to determine another time.
"There's no.. pressure in there.. is there?"

Affirmation. All oxygen within this room was vented some time ago. Airlocks appear to remain adequate enough to provide proper pressurization. Source of suitable atmosphere is uncertain.

"Clarify."
She leaned against the wall of the airlock, the clear polymer walls offering her a full view of the medical bay. In contrast to the hall outside, the bay was fairly untouched, and even the automated medical machinery seemed completely unused.

Unverified atmosphere sources have been detected aboard this vessel. Filtration systems remain offline. Air pumps are fully functional.

"Do it.. and see if you can't get a message out to the gang on the freeport.."
The airlock doors slid shut, allowing the medical bay to pressurize. Sheets on the beds flapped a little as air was pumped in. However stale it probably was, it was almost certainly better than the sweat-drenched must that had filled her EV suit.
The process reached its end, and after a short pressure check the door into the medbay slid open. West limped through, making her way for one of the beds. using whatever she could along the way to keep herself upright. The throbbing in her head had only grown more debilitating, and her limbs ached from the strain and trauma. As she reached the bed, she practically fell over onto it, gripping the sheets and pulling herself onto the mattress. She let out a hoarse groan as her legs gave out.

Transmission sent. Communications line remains intact. Unit CRANE remains unresponsive. Recommend Unit West attempt to rest. Injuries significant; Further strain may result in continued damage.

".. yea.. keep a watch on vitals.. wake me up if the gang shows up.."
West groaned as he muscles gave out, her breathing settling down as the strain of moving her limbs subsided. Her body was spent, her energy sapped. She tapped some inputs into her suit's control window on her arm, raising her visor and breathing the nice, stale, rotten air. Still, it was better than CO2 poisoning.

As she drifted off, the lights flickered again, and the airlock sealed shut.