World Tree MUSH

    The beautiful sight of Novo-VII glimmers outside of the shuttle windows like a gem in the night. A ball of perfect blue amid the glimmering stars, the ocean planet is almost serene in appearance as the transport cuts through space at a smooth clip.
    The Nijiura Heavy Industries Corporation's personal stake in this big blue ball of water is pretty vested; considering they had spent tons of oney and resources in building a space station over the planet, a sight that comes into view next, hovering silently over the aqua sphere. And with the completion of that very same space station, the company was quick to pat itself on the back, throw the doors open and invite offworlders to come see their operations and their plans to turn the watery planet from a lovely deep blue, to a lush and verdant green.
    Seated on the very lip of one of those windows, staring off into space with her hands and nose to the glass is a tiny figure; an Altines type shinki with a scarred eye that might be familiar to some. Alty had boarded the shuttle, perched on the shoulder of a one Hyouka Kiyama, and though she's been quiet for most of the trip, it's clear the little robot's rapt attention is out the window for her first trip into space.
    "--And if you look to the left, the station should be coming into view over the horizon." The shuttle captain says, pointing out one of the nearer windows as the looming silhouette of the floating steel and titanium colossus comes into view. "we're about five minutes from docking, so please be sure to gather your personal belongings and buckle yourselves back into your seats."

    Hyouka, for her part, has largely been keeping an eye on Alty; her observation comes from a blend of 'making sure the little shinki is doing OK' and 'enjoying her fascination with the view'. Not to say, of course, that Hyouka herself is missing any of the visuals. Getting to go out into space is always a wonderful trip. "Ah, look, there it is, there it is~," she points out as the station slowly creeps into view. If it's time to start getting their stuff together, though, she'll (reluctantly) tear her eyes away from the looming structure and set about stuffing her backpack under her seat.

  Please gather your personal belongings, the captain prompts, and one of the passengers in the berth looks around with the air of one befuddled.

  He's probably befuddling the other passengers as much as anything else. Most people don't expect to see a dolphin in a space shuttle, after all. In fact, most people don't expect to see a dolphin outside of saltwater. Yet here is Ecco, somehow floating near the bank of seats closest to him, as though he were in water. That silvery harness on his torso might have something to do with it.

  A casual flick of his tail pushes him closer to a viewport, snout bouncing off it slightly. Ow. "Eeeeee, look at that." It's the highest-pitched 'squee' ever, warbling right out of human hearing in its excitement. Yep, he talks. Not through his jaws, though. His jaws are firmly shut. It's the blowhole. Some of the consonants are a little... slushy, but he's pretty understandable.

  "Sssso much water. And sssso clean! Eeeeee, I'm looking forward to thissss." A vacation! He's never been on vacation. It's always alien invaders this and fractured timestream that.

  ...He still has no belongings to gather up, though, and he can't really be buckled into a seat (nor does his personal gravity seem to be affected by turbulence). The dolphin inches closer to the viewport, staring very intently with boat-shaped pupils wide in wonder and clicking incessantly like a broken Geiger counter.

    What it said on the label had instantly reminded him of the moon of Titan. Cayde has to admit though, from a distance, this planet is sure pretty. Not that he's all too crazy about completely water-enveloped worlds, but that never stops him from a good chance to sightsee. Whatever this corporation has in mind, it's really nothing new by way of ideas, or at least it's a concept the old Exo is well familiar with. How far and fast had people done the same back home, once their technology was so suddenly boosted, and the ability to travel their galaxy had grown in leaps and bounds.

    Naturally he's gotten tired of sitting and taken to wandering about the shuttle as much as allowed. With their destination finally coming into view, Cayde's stopped by a window to look out, only glancing up at the announcement to be seated. He will. In a minute. Of course he's going to take his time in this. 

    Straightening from the window, he has a look at the others who have also been invited along. He can't help but stare because one of them happens to be a fish. Okay, not a fish, but -still-.

    "Oooooh..." Jessica hadn't intended on going anywhere with Alty, but one thing lead to another, and as BlackSteel's representative offworld she'd ended up with a ticket on this shuttle, now staring out into space in the attentive way rather than the daydreaming way! Funny enough, the catgirl is one of the few who doesn't look startled by Ecco, but even she's looked that way probably intending to ask questions. It's Cayde that gets more of her confused looks, but right this second she's too busy enjoying the view. Her tail flicks back and forth excitedly.

    "Space travel would make it much easier to avoid Catastrophes!" she's blurting. "But we'd have to put rockets on the cities and then there wouldnn't be enough room for the wheels."

Serrah's only belonging is a sports bag from the Pokemon world, stuffed to the gills with baseballs, and that's already hanging from her hip. She's leaning against wall next to one of the windows, dressed in a simple black tank top and her usual rainbow-colored skort; she's looking very sleep-deprived, or at least jet-lagged. After her last hangout with Luke, she made the brilliant decision to strike out on her own, and she's slightly starting to regret doing so. On the bright side, she can't feel any sign of Vincent anywhere near this world, and even if he did wander in, actually getting to her would require getting a lift.

... unless a Vine happened to pop up at their destination, but, eh.

When Hyouka calls out, she looks over to the window and peers out, nodding in approval. "Nice," she murmurs. A hesitant glance is spared towards the Alty on Hyouka's shoulder, but ... eh. At this point she's gotten the picture that Alty scared everything, not just Serrah specifically.

She flinches slightly at the sudden dolphin-squee, but recovers quickly enough. A glance is spared towards Jessica and Cayde. Ah, more familiar-ish faces, though she can't quite place the latter. Was he there for one of Vincent's attacks or something ...? Yeah, that sounds about right. Regardless, she rises off the ground and floats over to Ecco, because showing off by simply defying gravity instead of strapping herself in seems like a good idea right now. "Hey," she says. "Long time no see." She's looking considerably more ... undead than she did when Ecco visited the coffee shop.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Vampire needs coffee badly.

    That is a dolphin.
    That most definitely is a dolphin, floating in the shuttle cabin, and truth be told, Alty has alternated between staring out the window and staring at Ecco for the entirety of the trip, head tilted to a curious angle.
    But her attention is back out the view port when the station comes into view and she stares it it for a long moment as it gets closer and closer.
    "... Rockets on cities?" She does aside curiously to Jessica. It's foriegn enough concept to her that there could be cities on wheels. But when the captain says for everyone to return to their seats, she hops off the window and takes her place back on Hyouka's shoulder- even offering a tiny wave to Serrah when she sees her.
    "That's... Weird. They're not responding to our hails." The copilot murmurs to the captain.
    "Hm. Must be a faulty comm line, they did just finish building the thing last week, it's bound to have a maintenance fluke or two. Look, the docks are open and primed, so we can put in without any trouble." He does point out as the shuttle approaches the station.
    The docking process is relatively painless, the two clearly having done this plenty enough in their career to make contact and then connect to the station with a soft sound of equalizing pressure in the airlock beyond.
    "Alright everyone, this is it, last stop!" The captain calls out mirthfully as he rises from his seat. "My copilot and I will guide you to reception and from there you'll be given the grand tour!" He says stepping out into the airlock beyond.
    The air is fresh, surprisingly, no stale or recycled scent to it as he leads through a brightly lit corridor into reception.
    Where absolutely no one waits. There's a brightly colored 'Welcome!' sign. A desk, a literature stand holding tons of pamphlets about the corporation, the planet, and their plans for it.
    ... But no one is there.

    Well, the presence of Cayde is a little bit of a surprise - she hasn't seen him for a good while. But he's both capable and personable, so she's definitely counting that as a welcome one. Likewise, Serrah is a familiar face by now. Both of them probably got friendly waves from Hyouka when they boarded. The real unexpected here, though, is the floating dolphin. The elven cyborg keeps glancing back over her shoulder at Ecco every now and then out of sheer bewilderment, while at the same time trying her level best not to Stare(tm). Compared to that, a catgirl like Jessica seems positively normal... except for the talk of putting rockets on cities.

    Blink blink. Hyouka looks vaguely confused at that, but before she can join Alty in curious questioning, her (totally not) elven ears pick up something briefly, vaguely worrying. Not responding to hails? Hm. Ah well. The pilot and copilot don't seem worried about it. "Right, right~," she calls out as they move to stand up and leave the shuttle.

    Her steps only slow when she realizes there's pretty much no one there. The cyborg blinks once, twice. "...no staff to greet us yet?" Sure, they probably don't have a lot of staff period yet, but not sending anyone at all? Rude.

    Jessica looks up at the question. "Yeah, most of our cities are on wheels or treads, rockets would be a lot faster." She tears herself away from the window, giving a polite pause to her stride to let Ecco by first. NOW she's paying more attention. "Neat, a floating dolphin... um, hello." Suddenly embarrassed to be rambling when she should have been meeting people.

    At least she knows some of them! Serrah was helpful enough to get a friendly smile, if slightly uncertain. She's still not sure how to handle the vampire girl, but it's moved from 'scared' to 'what is polite?' in that manner of wondering if it's polite or not to ask to hold the door for someone in a wheelchair.

    Ears perk up though. She does hear the discussion about the reception, and leans over to peek out. "Maybe they got the times wrong? Or maybe they had an emergency somewhere else?" Longer pause. "Maybe they had to use the restroom?"

    "Rocket cities are expensive," Cayde comments absently, his attention having returned back towards the windows. He flicks a glance towards the cockpit, optics shuttering slightly before he finally moves to take his seat. 

    Once they're all landed and all, he saunters on out after everyone else, giving nods to the few he's familiar with as he catches their eye, although Hyouka's the only one he's not merely met in passing. Well, it's definitely nice out here, no question about that! It is kinda...quiet though.

    "...someone's sure pulled out all the stops," he says. Can't even get a proper welcome party. Maybe they're diverting all their expenses towards the actual project. He gives a pointed look at the pilot and co-pilot as he sets his fists at his hips, waiting for perhaps some enlightenment, even though he's beginning to suspect they might not even know what's going on.

  This was supposed to be a nice vacation opportunity, but things are starting to look a little bit strange. Ecco tilts his head this way and that, eyeing the viewport as the shuttle draws nearer to the station. He gives a flick of his tail until his nose bumps up against the glass again, staring.

  If he notices all the people staring at him, he doesn't comment on it.

  Maybe he's used to it.

  Space travel isn't unknown in his realm, but it's been a while since the last ship had left Earth. He'd been too young to undergo training and sign up with the crew, and still grumbles to himself from time to time about the missed opportunity. Some had to stay behind to safeguard Earth, though.

  Fine job of that he's done in the meantime.

  Might be he glosses over the idea of rocket cities. He's busy looking real hard out the window, at least until a vaguely familiar voice pulls him out of his awestruck staring. He narrows his eyes, tilting his head to regard Serrah first with one eye and then the other, blinking and refocusing.

  "Oh, I remember you. You're from that coffee shop-p. On Earth. The other Earth." Not his. He doesn't have vampires and elves and weird stuff wandering around on his planet. "You don't-t look so good," he adds, eyeing her a little more. Depending on how good her senses are, she might feel a tentative, experimental prod of light sonar -- a subtle sounding. "...You don't-t sound so good, either. What-t happened?"

  He's quick to disembark, though, kicking his flukes to 'swim' through the air towards the dock entrance, allowing himself a lazy turning spin as he goes, slowing to a halt in the empty welcome chamber.

  The empty welcome chamber.

  "Well, thissss is a little weird," Ecco all but mumbles, eyeing the chamber. Clicking, he sweeps the room with sonar, just to be sure he's not missing anything important.

  He floats for a few seconds, turning this way and that to note the complete lack of a welcoming committee.

  "There'ssss nobody here." He sounds confused, but glances back at Jessica. "Ecco. My name is 'Ecco.'" Then, back to the others, and the empty room again. "Were there suppossssed to be people here...?

Serrah manages a lopsided smile and returns Alty's wave. She hasn't really been mingling here; it's just her habit of not getting too close to people these days, largely due to the aforementioned worries about scaring people. And so she's ... dawdling, ever so slightly, about disembarking.

She shrugs in response to Ecco's comment. "Uh ... I died, and got turned into a vampire," she says uncomfortably. "Also I'm supposed to be nocturnal, soooo I'm just a little bit jet lagged, ahahah ..."

But then her dawdling turns out not to make any difference. She looks around at the empty foyer. "... what, all of them at once?" she answers Jessica, one hand going down to her baseball bag and moving ever-so-slightly closer to Hyouka. She frowns; her adrenal gland is as dead as the rest of her, but she's clearly starting to tense up.

    People were supposed to be here. This is very strange, judging from the frown on the shuttle captain's face as he rubs his chin.
    "No, that's not right... The station should have been fully staffed as of yesterday." He replies to Hyouka and Jessica. "There's supposed to be someone here, right now, scheduled to meet us and everything."
    The co-pilot shrugs helplessly at Cayde.
    Ecco's sonar will find the room empty but, he may get a strange sense of... Motion from within the vents.
    This is when a blast shield slams down in front of the entryway to the airlock, cutting off access to the shuttle.
    "WARNING: Quarantine lockdown is now in effect." A mechanical voice blares from the room speakers as the lights go out and are replaced with emergency spinning lights from the ceiling.
    "Quarantine?" Alty squeaks. "What do we need to be quarantined for?"

    SLAM goes the blast shield. Without skipping a beat, Hyouka holds her hands out to the side, and in a moment of shifting, clacking, moving and locking, the massive twin black gauntlets of the FISTEAU system have formed themselves in place of her regular forearms. "I don't think it's us that's being quarantined," DARGN chimes in, her voice unusually serious. "The real question is why it only tripped on our arrival, though. If everyone is missing, this has probably been happening for a little while." That prospect prompts a deeper frown from Hyouka. "...Alty. You can hop in my backpack if you need to," she murmurs gently, already shifting to a slightly more protective position for Serrah's sake. "Cayde, do you have some kind of sensor suite, by any chance? My body's only got basic human senses. Really sharp human senses, but..."

    The sudden shift of atmosphere has Cayde raising his hands in the typical 'It wasn't me!' fashion. In the next beat he's slipping out his hand cannon as the words coming over the speaker systems sink in.

    "Guess this place has a few bugs," he notes. Well, one can hope it's only a minor malfunction, not that he's going to take his chances. He's got his Ace of Spades and an itchy trigger finger. When he hears his name, the Exo looks at Hyouka, giving a nod. "Sundance, you got anything?" 

    There's a glimmer over his shoulder as his Ghost materializes, her vertices twitching as she flicks a look around, consulting her local scans. "It will be easier if I can gain access to a computer system," she notes, turning slightly to eye the two that had brought them here. Obviously if anyone knows anything about anything here, it's the pilot and the copilot.

    Jessica's ears wilt as she's chided. "I mean... maybe it was something they ate? They could have food poisoning, oh no!" She's definitely trying, but the catgirl's clothing says she can't be that naive... she's just really really hoping it's something that simple.

    "Um... call me Jessica...." Ecco's introduction reminded her to say that, and it looks like people may need to have somethinng to call her very soon. From somewhere in her vest, the young woman has produced a pistol of a very odd make, and she's checking the slide and magazine with a crisp and very well-practiced motion. "... probably should be careful where we shoot on here if something pops up, right? I wouldn't want to blow a hole in the wall holding the air in!"

Serrah vanishes the instant the doors slam down.

That is, it's instantaneous. One proverbial frame of animation, she was near Hyouka; the next, she's just gone, as if she was a video that had skipped ahead.

And then a new shadow in the darkness by the door swirl up and coalesce to form Serrah again. "... Vampire-proof," she mutters, gliding back over to Hyouka. "I don't know why I'm surprised that quarantine-doors on a space station are airtight."

A pause. "... Waaaait, if there's some kinda plague going on here or whatever, then ..." She looks around, and peers at the blast doors as if trying to see through them to the shuttle they just left. "... why did they leave open the welcome mat?"

  Ecco whips around, turning double on himself in a feat of what may be unsettling agility for something so big and bulky. He's staring at the sound-glyphs revealed by his sonar, head turning this way and that, rapid clicking noises just on the edge of hearing the only sign that he's listening to something the others can't hear.

  "That'ssss even weirder." His nose turns to point toward the nearest registers. "Something in the vent-t is... movi--"

  Down comes the blast shield. Quarantine lockdown, the mechanical voice blares, and Ecco blinks rapidly, pivoting as the spinning emergency klaxons paint light and shadow over his grey hide.

  "I'm not ssssick-k. I don't-t think I'm ssssick-k, anyway." Ecco sounds a little unsettled; his voice is warbling very slightly, and also creeping towards the upper registers. "What'ssss going on? Is the door broken?"

  He backs himself up, eyeing the blast shield critically. His noise points again towards it, trying another experimental squirt of sonar. It's probably too thick to sense if anything is moving beyond it, but he can get an idea for how solid it may be.

  And hello Jessica is pulling out the weaponry. "That-t won't be necessary," the dolphin states, pulling himself up to high posture to eye the catgirl. "Better put that-t away. You might hurt-t someone in here. Let me see what-t I can do..."

  Drifting a little closer to the door, he noses at it, backing with a flick of his flukes to prod at another section with his snout, firing off quick and precise bursts of sonar every few seconds as he does. He's reading it, like a blind person would run their fingers over Braille.

  Backing up a bit, he eyes the others. "Might want-t to stand back."

  Once everyone moves, if any of them are even in the way, Ecco curls his body into a tight little coil -- and then bursts forward in a blisteringly fast charge, throwing all eight hundred pounds of his body at the door. Just when it seems like he might ram his skull into it and knock himself out, he twists, presenting his torso to the stout blast doors.

  Dolphin and door connect with a resounding BOOM, but the door doesn't look any closer to moving. Right, then, no faulty construction materials here.

  Ecco drifts away from the door with a very quiet, very high-pitched, "Eeeeeeeeee... owww..." Shaking himself, he straightens as much as he can, flicking his fins and eyeing the others. "What-t do we do?"

    Alty doesn't need to be told twice, she gets into the backpack and stays there, zipping it zlosed behind her as she curls up within.
    See, that blast door isn't going anywhere. It is both soundly vampire and dolphin proof as Serrah finds it airtight and poor Ecco finds it unyieldingly solid even with his powerful cetacean body.
    The captain and his co-pilot are looking increasingly worried as more of this passes; glancing around hastily in the dark under the swivelling emergency lights.
    "This is more than a maintenance fluke." The co-pilot mutters.
    But before the captain can reply there's a sudden shrieking tearing sound of metal being pried apart. Something long, thick, and sinuous slithers from the vent overhead and grabs the man. With a scream he's pulled into vent above. And with a series of pops and bursting clatters, more vent grilles explode outwards, multiple tentacular appendages lashing out trying to grab anyone and anything in reach.
    "--Run for it, follow me!" The co-pilot blurts, turning on his heels to start dashing for the nearest open doorway leading into the corridor beyond.

    Oh jeez, that looked like it hurt. Hyouka can't help but wince at the heavy impact Ecco makes. She'd be willing to wander over and give it a try herself, but before she can do so, all hell breaks loose. The captain is gone in a heartbeat, and very shortly another tentacle is trying to do the same for her. However, as that appendage snakes towards her, Hyouka brings up a fist suddenly aglow with several lines of glowing blue energy. "Yaaa!" It's a powerful punch backed by a charged burst of water-aspected mana, but she doesn't even stop to see if it did anything. She's going to try and catch up to the co-pilot and protect him; he's a lot squishier than she is, after all. A lot squishier than most of them, in point of fact.

    "Vampire proof? How's that even work??" Cayde can't help but blurt as he looks over at Serrah before he starts to nod. Oh. Air-tight. That...makes sense and doesn't, yeah. 

    And then he turns and sees the giant fish nearly brain himself against the door, wincing.

    "Yeah. We need a new plan--"

    That's about when something bursts out from the vent. Sundance reacts instantly, withdrawing back into her Guardian, and likewise Cayde is already drawing a bead on the flailing tentacles and firing off shots. 

    "Move it people!" he suggests, all the while continuing to pepper the tentacles with his hand cannon.

  "Did you even test anything before you ushered visitors here?" Ecco turns, casting a skeptical look at both the captain and co-pilot as they swivel around to look around in the dark. He knows he can see better than they can... also, there's nothing to see, just now.

  THERE'S A LOT TO HEAR, THOUGH.

  The shriek of metal is joined by the shriek of tormented cetacean senses, Ecco squealing and writhing in midair as the doors tear themselves open. In all that, he only barely notices that one of the two useless shuttle crewmen are tentacle-napped. It takes a half-second for his agitated squealing to resolve itself into words, warbling uncontrollably across the upper register.

  "SSSSQUID--!"

  What? It's the first thing that comes to mind. They look like they could be squid appendages.

  With a kick of his flukes, Ecco springs forward, dashing past the others and lunging for the nearest tentacle reaching for him. Instead of charging it, though, he lunges at it with his jaws open, squealing in defiance and trying to rip one of them apart with a maw full of very sharp, conical teeth. Whether he scores it or not, he turns, fleeing along with the others.

Serrah grimaces. "Yeah, I don't think that's gonna work, Ecco," she says. "We need to find, like ... some control center, every video game has those." She glances at Cayde. "Oh, uh, I just meant I can turn into shadow, but I can't get through stuff that's airtight --"

She's interrupted by the sudden tentacularity, still at the tail end of her power's cooldown. "Shit!" She takes half a step towards the vent the captain was just pulled into before turning into shadow again. Then she does that instantly-vanishing thing ...

... but she reappears in the same instant, reforming as she flies away from the vent with everyone else, looking grim. And ... slightly queasy. "Rest in peace, dude," she mutters. "Hope your soul gets out."

... She's ... trying to have that reaction. She doesn't want to get desensitized to death, which is both a cause and an effect of the dwindling essence of humanity within her.

    "EEEEEEE!" That's a shriek and a half! Jessica dives behind the nearby desk, interrupting her dart toward the injured dolphin. One might assume she's a coward, but it looks like she's just diving for cover, because her hand goes up to point to the ceilinng with her pistol. Good thing she DOES hesitate though! She doesn't want to hit the pilot that just got dragged off, or Ecco grabbing the tentacle!

    Originium firearms are pretty powerful, so it's a good thing that she does aim carefully, trying to shoot the base of a tentacle and clear some space! "Ewww! What IS this? HEY DON'T RUN OFF BY YOURSELF!" She's going to try to scoot toward where the co-pilot ran, but splitting up sounds like a terrible idea! Gotta make sure it's safe there. "HEY robot guy can you maybe see if there are places without vents?"

    "-'robot guy'," Cayde mutters before shouting, "It's Cayde!" over his shoulder as he turns to follow the others. "And I'm a little busy here- she's right though-" He points after Serrah. "-we needa find a control center. Then Sundance can get into the system and maybe we can find out what's going on." And how to get out. He sure hopes there's another docking bay, because otherwise they're just running themselves deeper into a rut.

    "As for vents! I think the point of 'em is to go just about everywhere so people can breathe. Also, they're great hiding places and even better to get around- which whatever it is that's up there has apparently discovered."

    Hyouka takes a swing for a tentacle, Cayde opens fire, Jessica blows a tentacle off the wall completely, and Ecco the mighty dolphin tries to rip one one apart with his teeth. They are rewarded with the very room they are in rumbling as though the tentacles were only trying to redouble their entry and crush the chamber in on itself! And poor Ecco is left with the taste of wet rot in his mouth as something lets out a hollow and shrill screech of pain from the attacks.
    Unfortunately an open vent in the hall, rimmed by a small trail of blood hint at what happened to the co-pilot for running off ahead, but the door leads into a much wider atrium, the stars and planet glinting in the darkness overhead. Whatever that thing was it hasn't followed out beyond the hall though, giving everyone a moment to catch their breath, figure out a course of action, and weigh options as a hologram sign in the center of the atrium points in three different directions.
    'Medical'
    'Engineering'
    'Crew quarters'.
    And another thing... Where did the backpack go?

  It tastes fishy, but it doesn't taste fishy in all the right ways. Can dolphins gag? Regardless of whether they can or not, the mid-stroke thrashing Ecco does suggests that whatever that thing was, it tasted very, very bad.

  Ecco's head turns momentarily, eyeing the blood staining the open vent. He can see it, but he can taste it better than he can see it, and it also causes him to clap his jaws loudly in distaste. See, this is why you never run off by yourself in situations like this. It always ends badly.

  He turns his head to eye the others, bland. "Medical, Engineering, or Crew Quarterssss...?"

    Hyouka's run to save the copilot turns out to be too late. "Gh..." The elven woman grits her teeth. Losing both of them so soon bothers her pretty deeply. "Hyouka. You need to keep moving." DARGN's voice is enough to nudge her back into action; for the time being, the elven woman decides to stick close-ish to Cayde. After all, she might not be the most tactically intelligent person, but even she's learned by now that a melee fighter ought to have some ranged backup. They make a fair combo.

    But having a moment to herself, the cyborg finally realizes she's missing something. Something important.

    Not the backpack, but rather what was inside it. Alty.

    "-oh no. Oh no, Alty. Alty!" First, Hyouka yells out loud, and then she very quickly switches to comms, trying to raise the little shinki on radio. "Alty! Alty, are you there? Can you hear me?" But even as she's frantically trying to contact the little robot, Hyouka seems to have already selected a destination.

    Unfortunately, it's not Medical, Engineering, or Crew Quarters.

    It's 'back the way they came'.

Serrah lets out a squawk of alarm as the chamber starts to collapse, and she speeds up slightly! She comes to a stop when she sees the blood of the co-pilot. "Awwww, fuck," she mutters bluntly. "Guess we'll also need to find an entire damn shuttle if we --"

She whirls around as Hyouka starts heading back. "... nnhhhh ..."

Her reluctance to be a hero flares up only briefly. A friend's life is on the line. Or, well, at the very least, it's someone she knows. But that still falls under 'reacting to people's deaths the way a human would.' She sighs, grabs at her baseball bag, and melts into shadow as she flows after Hyouka. "I'll cover you!" she calls out. And if necessary, rescue Hyouka. Whee ...

    "Sorry, Cayde!" Jessica is sincere about that, anyway! She's seen some weird things out here already, even if the dolphin here is less odd than some in her experience. She's with the others and tries not to look at the vent, but the atrium...

    "We should really not shoot here," she points out the obvious, looking up then back at the doors. Which ones? "Um. Engineering, maybe we can figure out where in the vents these are?" She's not an engineer, she wouldn't be the best person to try, but it's an idea.

    Hyouka's shout makes her look around for Alty too. She doesn't know the shinki well, but likes her well enough. "Be careful!" Rushing over to help 'cover' with a loaded pistol scanning for anything reaching for Hyouka. "Maybe she'll be okay because she isn't made of meat?" No, she isn't going to suggest Cayde test this.

    "Engineeri--"

    The Exo cuts himself off as he narrowly jerks to the side, what with Hyouka making such an abrupt about-face. He stares after her, and then after Serrah when the woman slips into a shadow.

    "Splitting up just invites us to get picked off one by one faster, just so you know!" he shouts after them. Sighing, Cayde looks at the remainder. "...//that// is a terrible thought," he says, visibly wincing at Jessica before he turns and...dashes off. Is everyone going back? No, this is ridiculous and there are tentacles that want to eat things or are attached to something that wants to eat things. 

    He disappears half-way down the hall, only to reappear in front of Hyouka. "Hey! You wanna get everyone eaten here?"

From the shadows, Serrah's voice calls out. "I'm already dead, but ... yeah."

    Cayde points at... Okay. Hah. He lets his hand fall. "You. Not helping."

    The shinki has gone missing. And Hyouka valiantly whips around to go try and find her. With Serrah and Jessica in two while Ecco and Cayde try to pick a direction. Unfortunately if no one stops the others that direction may be 'back into hell'.
    But it's as Hyouka goes for the way back that a mechanical squeal and hiss pipes up over the station's intercom.
    "--can you hea- me? ... --Can you hear me? Nonononono! Don't go back! I'm fine, I'm fine! That thing pulled me into the vents, but I guess it decided the backpack wasn't e-edible." A familiar voice speaks over the comm system, sounding shaken but mostly fine.
    "I'm in a room with a lot of screens, the good news is, I can see almost everything; it's not the main control room but I think I can control a lot of the doors and lock systems from here as well. But um. I have also some bad news..." Alty's voice trails off over the intercom.

    "I want to not get Alty eaten!" is the only reply Hyouka gives, and it looks like she's just about ready to barrel right past Cayde after he moves into the way - or possibly even bowl him over? She doesn't seem like she's in the calmest state of mind right then. But-

    "-Alty!"

    Oh god. Oh she's okay. Thank goodness. Almost immediately, Hyouka stalls out like a puppet with its strings cut. The cyborg visibly sags with relief; and then she more seriously sags, turning to lean against a wall and then just sliding down to sit on the ground. "That's- it's fine. That's okay. We can handle bad news. The important part is you're not hurt." She reaches up to run a hand through her hair, not even realizing it's still in Fisto mode. Or maybe just not caring.

  The dolphin turns, even as the others dive back into the breach, braving blood and horror and tentacles in the direction they'd just come from. Wait, weren't they all hurrying to get away from the awful nameless things in the air vents?

  Ecco looks back and forth, between the crowd leaving and the Guardian heading in the other direction. Cayde's probably right. Splitting up is probably going to get all of them picked off, one by one, but... staying here might do the same thing.

  "H-hey, wait-t for me!"

  So with a kick of his flukes, Ecco lunges after Cayde, keeping pace easily with the occasional flick of his tail. He doesn't say anything, for now; just... follows, because he has no idea where he's going!

Serrah sighs softly. Her flippancy about her own life status notwithstanding, it is a relief to hear Alty's voice. The shadow that's been following Hyouka coalesces to form Serrah again; she glances around at Cayde and Jessica, and she gently tugs at the Hyouka's arm, trying to pull her back in the direction of relative safety. "Not like I'm expecting that much good news," she calls back at Alty.

A thought strikes her. She really hopes they're not going to be stuck here for too-too long; she fed before she came here, but she doesn't want to go too long without, and she isn't sure she wants to brave D's 'emergency rations' ...

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Vampire worrying about vampirism ...

    See, Cayde said what she was thinking! He must be an intelligent being! Actually Jessica has so little self-confidence she's just glad someone agreed with her. She follows after Ecco and Cayde, but in a staggered fashion, keeping an eye on the vents with her pistol ready. Basically, covering the rear!

    "Alty, what is it you see? And where's... oh." Where did Serrah go is answered.

    Cayde looks ready to stand his ground, with just the slightest tilt of his head at Hyouka as he gauges the cyborg's mental state. He looks up as the little voice comes up over the speakers. That's one less problem, at least. 

    He lets Serrah take care of Hyouka, looking towards Jessica and Ecco as they join them before gesturing back towards the corridor where the directions to the other wings had been posted. "Probably won't make too much of a difference if that thing's still slithering around up there, but now that we've regrouped, let's head somewhere less cramped." And hopefully to another evac point along the line.

    He checks his ammo, nodding in absent agreement. Technically bad news is to be expected, so good news would have been more of a surprise. "All right, lay it on us. You find out what's happening?" he asks Alty-wards.

    "Well, um. No. I don't know what's going on at all. Maybe you all can find something out while exploring." The shinki answers Cayde over the PA. But what does she see? "A-and the bad news is this station is falling apart. Something is damaging the air recyclers in hydroponics. My guess is you have about three hours to fix it before you run out of..." She trails off again.
    "I'll try and get you access to the shuttle again but if I can't you may want to fix that before. Y-you know." She says. "The communications array is also down. If you fix that maybe we can send a distress signal or at least a signal to tell others to stay away. Finally, there's an incoming meteor storm headed for the planet. ... And the station's asteroid defense systems are offline. ... Sorry. I'll stay where I am though, maybe I'll be more help from in here then out there."
    Well, that is bad news.

    Eventually, Hyouka can be urged to her feet. Eventually. A moment of sheer panic has a way of taking it out of you. Finally, she lets out a breath, gives Serrah a little nod, and then stands herself up. "That all sounds... really not good. I think the most pressing thing is probably the air recyclers, though. I don't need to breathe, but I'm guessing everyone else here..." Pause. Glance to Serrah. Glance to Cayde. "...well alright, not everyone. But it's important." She rubs a hand through her hair again - and now realizes that she's still in gauntlet mode.

    After fixing that, the cyborg adds, "Incidentally, I don't need to breathe. If there's anything that requires going outside, or there's any parts of the station that lost air..."

Serrah raises her eyebrows at Alty's dire pronouncements, then furrows her brow. And then she slowly reaches up and facepalms.

"I don't need to breathe, but I'm not keen on trying my first space walk in these kinds of circumstances," she says, almost conversationally.

    ".....

    "Hokay. That's...pretty bad," Cayde concedes. He ticks each problem off a finger. "Spacewalks are nothing new for me. Also, if we gotta make any repairs outside, Sundance can handle it. Either way, sounds like we got a lot of repairs ahead of us."

    He glances around at the others. "So let's see. Running out of air is no bueno for those of us that kind of depend on that sort of thing. We probably should prioritize that, especially if we're on a timer. If we can find some kind of computer access, maybe my Ghost can pull up a map of the place so we at least know where we're supposed to be going. Do we got an ETA on that meteor storm? Actually never mind, let's not worry about the meteors for now because without air half of us will be dead anyway."

    The Exo turns and looks at everyone present. Yep, this is going to be interesting. "So much for a vacation, eh?"