Kipo would have liked to sniff the air in the room, but the rebreather (and the even higher chances that there could be something toxic in the air here in Outlaw Tech Engineering than in the rest of the ship) made it seem unwise.   He started to ask Jane for a hand, but over the years she had beaten into his head the moral constraint against what she called, "breaking the fourth wall", meaning he should never look at the drones nor talk to them. Why? He had no idea. Jane thought she was explaining it to him a couple of times, but it was mostly babble words that didn't stick.   He turned his head to the left and projected his voice around the rebreather, "The reactor looks in good shape," then sliding in and forward and turning to the right, he added, "The communication array wiring job looks like someone had a protracted food fight with two bowls of Calamarian noodles."   Kipo's stomach seemed to be turning his thoughts to food.   He hoped the out-loud monologuing was being transmitted to Nyx, but at least he was pretty sure Jane would appreciate it. "That fin-like structure there must be the fancy hyperdrive setup. It gives me the impression there was a heated argument between someone who wanted it online and somebody else who wanted it offline, maybe permanently.   "The hyperdrive seems to be getting at least a little power - I don't know - projected in from somewhere wirelessly. The user lights are mostly dim blue, which sometimes means nominal, but now they are starting to turn red. Red usually means, 'Warning', or 'Beef', but only if its the label on a bouillon cube... usually, 'Warning'."   Kipo didn't think this was a time for stealth but a time to get some payback with the object of his frustrations. It could be a good time to shout out something irritating, offensive, and maybe racist for good measure.   "Licensed Bounty Hunter!" he shouted to the hyperdrive and the apparently empty room, "All Squibs get up against the wall and assume the position. I'm cashing in your bounty!"

     

There was no time to lose, but that didn't mean he would leap entirely without looking. He wrapped the tip of his tail around one of the many structural support beams meant to hold the communications array up off the floor.   In a move he had practiced just in case a person took a shot at him, he slapped his chest down to the floor while pulling his head out from his guitar strap and hat. He set the instrument and apparel lightly on the floor next to him. Hopefully it looked smooth and easy, but it had taken him a lot of practice.   The next instant, he slithered on his belly flat against the floor into (mostly under) the mess of power conduit connections, like an infantryman crawling under barbed wire. He reached an arm deep into the dimness.   He feared it was the killer robot rebreather lookalike. He hoped it was a Squib Outlaw Tech with a punchable face.   In case it was the second, he shouted, "I am pullin' plugs outta this thing startin' right now, an' I don't care what shuts off!"   Whatever was in there, he didn't plan to stay in there with it for long. Smell and hearing and sight were not much good, so anything that felt remotely like a leg and maybe a tiny boot would have to be close enough. Whatever was there to grab, he planned to pull himself out by the tail and hopefully bring it out into the relative light.

     

Kipo slid back in surprise, then tried to make it look purposeful. He pulled himself up to full height, wrapped one arm around the Squib attached to his facial hair, half-way between cradling a child and restraining a bounty, (perhaps a bit more of the latter than the former). He turned so that one of Jane's drones could see both their faces.   "Alright, spill the beans, buddy!" Kipo shouted, then whispered, "Don't look at the drone, look at me," then shouted, "Who is SHE? And why have you been jumping this ship out here and back, over and over again?"

             

Storyteller Instructions

Kipo! Well, that’s a thing, now isn’t it? I believe your reply will need a Persuasion roll! Also… what do you do!

"You got that right," Kipo said to the Squib technician, "I'm your only ticket out of here, so stick close to me and mind your P's and Q's if you want to stay in my good graces, ya see?"   Kipo started to slide out of Engineering with the techie still firmly attached, tracing his path back to the Bitter Luck and expecting to find Nyx somewhere along the way.   So, the story as he put it together in his mind was: The Child's shipboard computerized intelligence went crazy-ape-bonkers-with-a-drill-and-sex and doesn't like the idea of getting her brain and body refurbished piece-by-piece by people whose quality of workmanship could be called 'moderate' at best. Oh - and those are people who are unaware she exists at all. Her going bug-nuts is probably related to the reason why most folks get an astromech droid to do the piloting instead of building a droid into the ship. Those Orange Catholic folks might have gotten one thing right by placing a guideline against building starships that think for themselves. A droid can get memory wiped whenever it goes soap-slip-bananas, but not a whole ship, way too much trouble to keep butt-loads of needed information while doing a memory wipe on the ship-board personality.   So, if SHE was anything weirder than that, then Kipo didn't want to hear about it right now. He was ready to return with that explanation and collect the clams.   Plus, SHE had taken several Squibs prisoner. And maybe other folks. He was pretty sure they had scanned and found no life forms, but even rum-runners had ways to cheat scanners. Wednesday's Child was not a particularly large ship, but Kipo had no doubt a good dozen impromptu holding cells could have been fashioned out of the gaps between known living spaces if somebody set their mind to it. And the problem was: Such prisoners might lose all the comforts when the crackpot-whacko-monkey computer gets wiped, so releasing them from whatever captivity SHE imposed on them would have to come BEFORE they could walk her out behind the barn.   "So here's the deal. I'm carrying you back to my ship. Then my team will be collecting the survivors of your team before we all ladybug out of this lemonade stand. So tell me all about exactly how SHE captured your team mates. And how many of them are there? And what name do you go by? And have you ever had a Tallaan hotdog? Oh, and has SHE been warping back to the shipyards after these walkabouts, or was that your doing?"  

           

Surprisingly, this Squib didn't irritate Kipo. He was quick with the answers, if a bit all-over-the-place, but that might or might not have been due to Kipo's influence.   "You and I are going to make sure she doesn't finish her machine," Kipo told Callan, the Squib.   Then he gazed up into the heroic distance and shouted, "Nyx, I found the problem. We need to shut down a contraption in the data room beside the ship’s main data core!”   Then as he coiled his tail in preparation to spring out the doorway from Engineering, he focused on the Squib, (nearly having to cross his eyes), and said, "Hang on, little buddy. This is going to be a bumpy ride."

Storyteller Instructions

Holy dynamic drones, Kipo! What’s gotten into Jane? It’s engineering so there are always numerous crawlspaces and maintenance tunnels leading out into the ship. The keypad to the right of the door is red, indicating locked and sealed. Other indicators are rapidly swirling past on the tiny readout indicating that something is happing.

Any attempts at manipulating the keypad or most any other panel in here will require a Technical roll. Beyond that, I trust you’ll be blazingly inventive!

What do you do?

Now that was the first time Kipo had ever seen Jane stop the cameras from rolling, no matter how unseemly the situation. This was not like her at all.   That plus the likelihood that the atmosphere was being vented to space (which fortunately no ship designer ever made quick and easy to do, but a fairly lengthy process) gave Kipo a heaping helping of anger to direct at someone. And he knew exactly who.   He took hold of Callan's upper arm with one hand and prepared to slap his face with another. Then he pictured the chain reaction of events, considering that the Squib was still frantically gripping Kipo's beard. He decided just to grab the Squib by both upper arms and shake him out of his manic panic.   "Listen, Callan!" he told him, "You jury-rigged all this," glancing at the hyperdrive and communications array, "You did it to contain her or distract her or whatever. Well... Now you're going to rewire it. Rewire it to HURT her. I don't care if it only lasts a half a standard hour. That will be all the time we need."   Kipo paused only a moment for his words to sink in, but not enough to receive any arguments, then added, "Then we're high-tailin' it to the data room to take apart her machine."  

       

Storyteller Instructions

Kipo! Callan is off and busy, but what will you do?

In the darkness, Kipo slid over to the sole door into (and hence out of) Engineering. With the Squib doing the part of the plan that involved irritating the opposition, it was up to Kipo to open up a way out of this room toward the data room. Whether it was Jane or someone feigning to be her who mag-latched the door, Kipo was certain he could not out-hack them electronically. He would have to sweet talk that door ... or sing it a song to convince it to open.   Kipo felt a cold chill run down his back. He turned to face the air conditioning vent and realized what the Feign Jane had meant by, "I’ll refresh your air!" She was going to freeze him out. Kipo remembered all too clearly that one time when he entered a cage-fighting match to track a bounty, a guy who claimed to be from Hoth, and wound up fist fighting in a very cold cage. As the air temperature dropped, the guy seemed to punch and dodge faster and faster, but it was really Kipo's brain and metabolism that was slowing as the cold overtook him. So, it appeared that this as yet unseen woman who scared the blue juice out of the Squib here knew how to attack a cold-blooded Thisspiasian at his weakest point ... (well, one of his weakest points.)   Anger burned behind his eyes as he felt the chill grow colder. And then he knew exactly how to serenade that door.   First, Kipo reached up and squeezed the air ductwork, and punched his fists into it a few times, and twisted it just to make the metal more flexible. He didn't stop until the cold air draft was blowing directly on the door's main structural hinge-pin.   Then, trying to ignore the cold, he aimed the headstock of his guitar at the clevis section of the door's hinge and played that song that so thrilled the crowds on Kamino.   "I feel my temperature rising. Higher, higher, It's burnin' through to my soul. Girl, girl, girl, girl, You're gonna set me on fire. My brain is flamin'. I don't know which way to go."   And he lit the pyrotechnic flame gout from the headstock aimed at the door's structure, knowing that if the clevis got hot enough and the hinge pin got cold enough, it could slip out of the mechanism, leaving the door off its hinge.   "Your kisses lift me higher, Like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky: Burnin' Love!"

Kipo felt pretty certain he would have them out of the trap in a moment, and if not, then at least it would be warmer.

           

Storyteller Instructions

Kipo, take it on over to : Meeting of the Minds (thread)