NationStates Jolt Archive

Boom.
At the noise, Jacob Slyth sat bolt upright on his cot, and immediately regretted it. God above, you'd think that Pale Rider Arms would have found something for hangovers by now... Where the hell am I?
Looking around, it all began to come back to him. Sam's party. The sex. The booze. The mining station recruiter...

A recruiter?

Shit!
Sobering up a bit, he looked around him. Oh crap, I really did it. I'm on a space transport. Ah shit, I must really have been hammered...
Again, the booming sound, so loud and deep, he could feel it in his bones. The ship must be entering atmosphere... Where the hell am I going?!

Wracking his brain, Jacob tried to remember where the station was, what the hell he had volunteered for.

New station. Why else would there be a recruiter? Now, the planet... Big. Gas giant. Roman name... Hermes? No, that's Greek. Juno? No...

A voice boomed over the intercom
"Attention all passengers, prepare for docking at Jovian Station Bacchus. Crash nets are advised."

Well, that solves one problem...

Scurrying back into his bunk, Jacob quickly fastened the crash net, and started praying that the ride down would be smooth. No such luck. By the end of the trip, he had forsworn alcohol twice, drugs once, and sex once, though by the third minute, he decided that he would need all of the above after this ordeal.

As he staggered out of the ship cursing, Jacob noticed the other volunteers. A few looked to be in as bad a condition as him, but most were sober. The lot was mostly human, with a trio of amoebic Dolomites, a pair of Thranx, and one severely pissed-off looking Rhun. Of course, Jacob reflected, they're always pissed off. Now, where the hell is the nearest bar...

His cries of rage could be heard across the entire bulk of the twenty-kilometer wide platform as he discovered that the station didn't have one.

OOC: Is this something you want other people involved in, or is it a narrative sort of thing?

Tag... Is this open?

OOC: You can get involved if you want, I'm mostly playing this by ear.

ooc: so your looking for people to RP other miners?

OOC: Preferably, yes. They don't have to be Otagians, of course. Expatriates from several nations would have been "recruited." Second post inbound.

Jacob stared moodily across the reddish horizon, watching cargo haulers come and go from the installation. Sighing, he turned. He had to admit, things could have been worse. Even though he hadn't had a drink for two days, he was actually starting to like the place. Sure it could use a few additions (a bar, for example), but the PRA designers had made damn sure that the miners would feel comfortable on the station: Enough free time, game rooms, worship sites for those interested, even a pool! And his bosses weren't bad, and had actually made sure that Jacob and several other "volunteers" had it easy their first few days. He could start to like it here...

Pulling out his datapad, he went over the intro file again.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v652/blaesa/JovianFloater.jpg
Welcome to Pale Rider Arms' Jovian Mining Platform Bacchus. Part of a series of new platforms on Jupiter, Bacchus has been designed to harvest a variety of chemicals, from hydrogen and helium gasses to the ultra-rare liquid metallic hydrogen found at the planetary core.

Using gravitonics and lighter-than-air gasses, the Jovian Platforms float at the edge of Jupiter's huge atmosphere, where the pressure is equivalent to a single Otagian Atmosphere. By extending a flexible carbon-reinforced duralloy tube down through the atmosphere, Pale Rider Arms is able to siphon materials directly from the lower portions of the atmosphere. These materials are then piped to one of four processing plants, where it is casked and shipped off-world by Mobius Guild traders.

While this technology is a vital part of the station, none of it would be possible without the skills and labor of you, the platform's staff. Here at Pale Rider Arms, we are devoted to your safety and well-being, and as such, we have constructed an assortment of recreational facilities for your enjoyment. While using the recreational facilities, please follow all safety guidelines.

Safety is the number-one concern on Bacchus platform. We are proud to note that, under the current guidelines, there has not been a single accident on Bacchus yet. We humbly request you follow these guidelines, which may be found in your employee manual, in order to preserve the safe working environment.

We hope you will enjoy your stay on Jupiter, and thank you for choosing Pale Rider Arms for your employment needs.

ooc: Jovian is Jupiter not Saturn
may join if I can find a way to do it.

OOC: Srry, typo. Will fix.

...ultra-rare liquid metallic hydrogen...


OOC:
Metallic hydrogen is basicly just sufficently compressed hydrogen; in that sense, it's literally the most common substance in the universe, making up 90% of the visible universe.

Harald "Kono" Kyutios was looking over Jacab's shoulder, very quietly, without disturbing him, listening to the soft feminine voice coming from the Datapad.

"Hmmm, nice choice of voice man." the Tritanorian said, Jacob jumped in surprise, his shoulder hitting under Kono's chin.

"Yipe!" he lost his balance and fell flat on his rear, his datapad popped out from his pocket and activated, showing the screensaver of his girlfriend, half naked, and in a very suggestive position. This was seen by everyone around, except the confused Jacab.

Before anyone coukd make a comment or get it in their hands he quickly got it, closed it, and shoved it into his pocket. He went to the side and looked down at the planet.

It was odd, for him, to not see the green grass of his home country town. But the misture of orange, red, brown, and other colors not high on the visible light spectram.

"Kirei...." he said in amazment. Totally ignoring the confused Jacab.

i hope you dont mind me joining

OOC:
Metallic hydrogen is basicly just sufficently compressed hydrogen; in that sense, it's literally the most common substance in the universe, making up 90% of the visible universe.
Yes, but liquid metallic hydrogen is only found at around a million or so bars of pressure, making it extremely rare in nature.

Tritanor: NP, tis open after all. I'l have a response up by the end of the day, as I need to go to work right now.

Yes, but liquid metallic hydrogen is only found at around a million or so bars of pressure, making it extremely rare in nature.


OOC:
Well, not so much rare, as not readily accessible, given there it's located, but I'll give you that point.

My point was that it'll decompress into regular hydrogen unless you make it metastable, and that future-tech nations of this scale shouldn't have any problems compressing hydrogen to that point in the first place. And pumping it up would likly take more energy than compression.

But, point made, I'll stop pulling yer thread off on tangents and drop the subject.

OOC: bump

OOC: Sorry for the wait, unexpectedly lost internet service. Using a friend's comp right now, but mine should be back up soon.

IC: Jacob turned sheepishly. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to... Hey, why's everybody laughing?"

Before anyone could answer, the intercom flared to life.
"Attention all Initiate-Grade Miners. Please report to Deck Alpha for Training Session with Master Miner Deckard. Message repeats, Please report to Deck Alpha for Training Session with Master Miner Deckard."

"Damn, that's us. Well, I'll see you down there."

-----

Walking into the training room after a quick shower, Jacob wasn't suprised to see that everyone else had beaten him there. Even the Rhunate bastard had gotten there first. The two and a half meter lizard was leaning nonchalantly by the wall, looking on as Deckard began his lecture.

"Well, seeing as the last of you have made it, its time to start training. I have the pleasure of introducing you to the HIPREPA Mk. IV. "

Deckard tapped a few buttons, causing panels in the walls to slide open, revealing sleek suits of heavy environmental power armor.

"Made to withstand the extreme pressures coreward here, the High Pressure Environmental Power Armor lets us make in-person repairs to the outside of the Bacchus platform. Without it, the platform would sink to the core within a week. Today, we'll be training in its use, and doing a run outside the station. Before we begin, any questions?"

"Sure, what keeps us from plummeting to the core once we're outside?"

"Antigrav generators are located on each HIPREPA, allowing us to fly through the atmosphere easily. There's enough energy in the suit to last for three days of activity before a recharge. Now, onto the training..."

OOC: Am interested in this... but my nation is of Tau... I could have a Kroot in the mines... depends on you really...

"Oh, oh! One last question!" yelled Kono from the back of the row.

"Yes, This is the last one. what?" asked Deckard, a little anxious to get to training these 'weaklings'.

"Yes, um, isnt it REALLY hot outside the barrier? What keeps the suits from melting and killing us?"

Deckard looked a little disshelved. No one had bothered to ask that before.

"Air conditioning." he heard the entire crowd sigh, even heard one mumble to another "What is this 'Air Conditioning. Black magic is it?"

"Alright, any more questions? No. Ok! Good, anymore questions that need to be asked can be answered by me later. As for now, we really need to get to training..."

OOC: Sure, join in. Tau, Kroot, whatever. If a Rhun has stooped to mining, I'm sure a Kroot or Earth-Caste Tau would easily.

IC: As soon as everyone had suited up, Deckard slammed his gauntleted hand into a large red button. As soon as he did, the hatches on the walls opened, and the red air of Jupiter rushed in.

"As you can see, the HIPREPA is completely air-tight, keeping us from boiling or choking to death. I've slaved all your controls to mine at the moment, just to give you a little help. I've taken the liberty of activating your AG units."

As he spoke, the group floated off the floor, and out the open door.

"Now, all those of you with neural uplinks, I'm uploading the operation data to your headware memory now. For the rest of you, I'll be running you through the basics. Now, you can activate your comm systems by flicking the center tongue switch..."

Kono was rather unlucky, as he didnt have neural uplinks. He flinked the central tongue switch, which had a sort of metalic blood taste aftertaste to it. But he hardly noticed

Aura Pendragon fell. Plummeting through the pea-soup-thick clouds, air a murky crimson desipte the intensity of her suit's flood lights.

Then suddenly the clouds pealed away as she transitioned into a transparent band; from choking, claustrophobic darkness to mind-boggling immensity in an instant, the world opened up befor her - sunlight pouring into the transparent chasm, bracketed by soaring, beautifully turbulant walls cloud a thousand kilometers apart; a crimson trail bollowing in the lass' wake as her falling form arced into the clear sky.

Her breathing slowed as she adjusted her arms, altering her aerodynamic profile, shifting her position for a better view; sky-blue eyes sparkling as they took in the spectle befor her. And she giggled; now this was a...

A soft beeping brought her apreciative musings up short; a directed thought keying radar telemetry into her mind's eye...

"That's not suposed to be there," she thought aloud, holo-HUD bracketing the distant gas mining platform below upon her transparent SAPL visor, magnified view apearing next to it as she keys the armour's suplimentary optics.

And they were going to collide.

Fortunatly, however, they would be several minutes in closing, and she had several options.

The first, would be to deploy her parachute, which would rapidly slow her descent and kill most of her lateral motion. The second was to inflate her ascention gas-bladders, which would eventually bring her back to her dive-depth many kilometers above. Or, she could just pulse her IDD flight systems, which were currently offline - although it might be fun to idle in this part of the atmosphere for a bit. Any of those would allow her to miss the station by kilometers.

The fourth option, however, was to see if she could get an entire gas mining facility to move out of her way. And that, she decided, would be by far the most entertaining option.


"Attention... Pale Rider Arms' Jovian Mining Platform Bacchus," she began over her suit's general comm, reading the station's transponder-beacon, befor continuing with her own, "This is Skydiver Four-Four-One-Dash-One, out of the Ess-Ess Jovian Tours. I am descending deadstick and ballistic towards a lower atmosphere rendezvous; request that you alter your position by four hundred meters eastward to avoid collision."


OOC:
Yes, that is, in fact, a girl in a suit of powered armour sky diving in Juipter's atmosphere. And, as she specified that she would be making a lower atmosphere rendezvous(ie, being picked up), you have no way of knowing that she has any way of changing course. ;)

Taggity, with intent to play Rhunfolk worker "Krel". Big, brought his own booze. Will share with anyone.

OOC: You know Kanuck, I'm the nation that unleashed a plague just to see what would happen. I give out recipes to cannibals. I'm an intergalactic arms dealer who is currently making a killing selling to both sides of a war. This also tends to make me paranoid when adding in point defense. Was sky-diving near a PRA facility really THAT good of an idea? :p

Either way, I also enjoy a good game of chicken. ;)

IC: Automated scanners picked up the message from the falling woman, and forwarded it to the administrator. Damn, why do these things always happen on my shift?

"Ma'am, I'm afraid the station is not capable of moving that quickly, please alter your course or you will be in danger of becoming a cloud of superheated gas. You will enter range of the automated weapons towers withing thirty seconds. Twenty nine, twenty eight..."

OOC: Oh, and for all those involved, if you need to contact me, my MSN is blaestwin@hotmail.com.

"Fooie," she muttered over the comm; a mental command starting a clock on her HUD, while painting a spherical exclusion zone around the station; both conservitive, "I loose my deposit if I tap the neutronium reserves for the energency drives. You just better be right about that radius; I'll be skimming it by five kilometers, otherwise I'll miss my intercept..." she continued, starting her course correction, "...and I'm carrying a live feed my website, so you can bet you'll be paying my reincarnation tab if I get pot-shotted!"


OOC:

[/temptation]

Deckard was lecturing to his trainees, oblivious to the small speck rapidly dropping towards him from above.
"...Right, so now you've learned the basics of flying with your antigrav systems. Now, try flying over to that cloud over there and- HOLY SHIT!"

The trainees scattered as the power armored figure fell past them, barely missing Jake.

"Holy crap, somebody must have fallen off the station! Are their grav systems not working? We gotta help them!"

Seeing nobody else was moving, Jake dove straight down after the rapidly dwindling speck.

Aura grined as her radar painted the aproaching miners, nudging her drives, bringing her a little closer; mentally keying her general frequency comm as she buzzed the group with all the audacity of her fighter-jock peers - a howling, laughing, "KYAIEEEEE!!" echoing through radios as she screamed by.

Of course, it was entirly likly - rather probible, in fact - that the suited miners would be working on their own private channel, and so few, if any, of them would have heard her.


Grinning to herself, the foxgirl lass again shifted, turning, now using her suit's gyros to stabalise as she looked back with at the vanishing specks with bioengineered eyes.

Except one wasn't vanishing. In fact, it looked like... Radar confirmed! One of the buggers was actually persuing her; out of anger, concern, or challange, she didn't know. But, now that she had cracked open her neutronium, she hoped it was the latter of the three.

It could be fun... And she had far more flight time, and raw power, avalible to her than she'd let on to the mining station's radio operator.

But... if he was pissed, well, she wasn't exactly heavily armed out here, and who knew what they were packing. And, really, she wasn't that sure she'd qualify for reincarnation if she provoked them into killing her.. better let him come to her.

Atleast the view was breathtaking.

OOC: Sorry for the wait, RL making things difficult, as usual.

IC: Jake swept down through the thickening atmosphere, dimmly aware of the growing roaring sound of wind sweeping past his suit. He noted, much to his annoyance, that he wasn't getting any closer to the falling suit. Flicking a tongue switch, he reversed the polarity of the anti-grav unit, sending himself downwards at a hundred times the normal rate. Now we're getting somewhere! He could see the speck rapidly growing in size, and as it did...

That's not a PRA suit! Who the hell is this? Screw it. Pick 'em up first, ask questions later.

OOC: Sorry for the wait, RL making things difficult, as usual.


OOC:
Aye; thunderstorm rolled in last night, myself, befor I could get around to responding - having lost my modem once to lightning in the past, I decided to play it safe.



IC:
Aura watched as the forgine suit accellerated, now closing rapidly; anxiouly pondering his intent, she decided to take timeless advice to heart and hope for the best, but prepare, in what ways she could, for the worst.

'Which isn't a whole lot,' she idly observed while checking the readouts of her idling drives, then removing the safties from the diving armour's intigrated 5mm Inertial Multilauncher and queuing M5 MACS rounds from the internal magizine - the moderatly potent EW/ECM package already on standby.

All of which took less than five seconds, leaving her ample time to ponder the Kanuckistani obsession with arming everything. 'What had someone dubbed it? The Cult of the Militia? Apropriate.'

Jake swooped closer, and as he did, he could see the shapes of several weapons on the unidentified suit. Is that a PRA mil-spec outfit? Or is it foreign? Either way, better power up the weapon systems...

While the suit was (according to the PRA training manual) unarmed, it was in no way harmless. For example, the plasma welding torch could be dilated until the plasma was focused into a beam, and the microwave comm device could be used as a maser in a pinch. Jake mentally adjusted a few settings, and he was ready for anything, just in case.

With that, he swooped in to pick up the falling figure...

Jake swooped closer, and as he did, he could see the shapes of several weapons on the unidentified suit. Is that a PRA mil-spec outfit? Or is it foreign? Either way, better power up the weapon systems...

While the suit was (according to the PRA training manual) unarmed, it was in no way harmless. For example, the plasma welding torch could be dilated until the plasma was focused into a beam, and the microwave comm device could be used as a maser in a pinch. Jake mentally adjusted a few settings, and he was ready for anything, just in case.

With that, he swooped in to pick up the falling figure...

OOC:
Oops, should have clarified; the intigrated launcher is very much physicly so - aside from a slight bulge in the armour and the outline of the closed muzzel-hatch, there's nothing to sugest that it's armed - if it was obvious, I'd have mentioned that during aproach. And it's unpowered, so as to avoid reactions like the above, in case she's scanned - firing cold'll just mean the first few rounds won't get the full and proper dose of delta-Vee.

It's small, concealible nature is also why it's firing MACS warheads, which are relativly expensive, rather than cheap-as-dirt inert slugs; it's not a very powerful gun, atleast when it comes to opposing FT armour.

Sorry about that.