Pride Goeth

[Amy West]

Dreadnought Arcturus, Vespucci
Evening

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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.."

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"The truth's always harder to swallow than a simple white lie.."
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