Hawking Wilderness, Vos Plateau
Development of New Cambridge and Concourse Gamma was flowing smoothly, but the focus on military infrastructure had left the transport connections between the two megastructure assemblies a little lacking. Probably the best that could be expected from a frontier planet in the middle of an independence movement.
This situation led to Dr.Knowledgebot and two heavy Echoni units being transported by an independent tilt rotor, across a wide and unpredictable area of swamp land known to the Grawla as ‘Voz’... It had no human name, because humans had never been or had reason to go there.
At least the weapons expo had gone well. The two Echoni Z-23 and Z-9, were all dolled up in their best dresses for morale purposes, currently lit by the orange glow of a morning sun, strained through the small repeated portholes of the spacious aft cargo bay.
Cotton clouds of blue and grey streamed past underneath them, making the virulent green terrain far below look… Simply unreal, as if computer generated, or part of some vast wargaming diorama.
It was supremely peaceful, with nary a noise but the distant hum of the engines…
Until the -wu-pap- sound of an electromagnetic spike.
The interior lights went off? And the engines weren’t making a noise at all now?...
That probably wasn’t good…
But at least it made it a bit easier to hear things, Z-23 seemed unconcerned, her push-cart pulled right up to one of the porthole windows so she could put her nose right up against the glass. The Echoni seemed enthralled with all the things outside and she was eager to get to see as much of them as possible. She’d already expressed her amazement at how big this room was, and how it was even bigger than Azathoth, and how she wanted to go down and see the stuff up close, and how this was so much better than her room in Alpha-complex! This craft’s rate of descent was noticeable, especially for an Echoni such as Z-23 who was built to know such things. “OH! Think we’re gonna go down there and look at all the stuff?!” she asked excitedly.
Dr. Knowledgebot had volunteered for the previous weapons expo for personal reasons, mostly to analyze weapons designs and formulate his own for future projects. He had resigned himself to then playing babysitter for two chaotic meat machines. They were like children, disallowed a real childhood, and as such he couldn’t find anger towards them. The malfunction brought up a wartime concern, for if the transportation industry fails them the ladder falls out from under them. He would have to fix this, and upload the patch notes so this didn’t happen again. The Echoni probably wouldn’t think of that. Perhaps this would be an interesting exercise in parenting.
His eyes ran over the engine, analyzing where the problem could be. “It would be preferable if we fixed it, yes. That way this can be fixed in future, and so Hawking doesn’t need to pay for a new transport. All will be well, I am on the job.”
Nothing seemed visually wrong in terms of the craft’s structure. There weren't even any human pilots to panic over the situation… Though the total silence of the simple AI control system in itself was probably a big clue in itself to what had gone wrong.
There was a manual analog keypad for restarting the system in the cockpit, one of the only features in an otherwise flat black glass panel. Kind of a wonder they even put front windows in, for all the consideration they apparently put into driving this thing with honest to goodness organic hands.
Turning around and facing back towards the cargo bay hatch, the problem might be a tad more apparent; There was an independent computer node for the power transfer system, and it seems that somebody had simply forgotten to put the maintenance panel back on.
Including the EMP shielding plate… So… The main computer wasn’t getting power. And the system that regulated it got popped by something they flew over.
Refusing to stir from their nap, arms wrapped around Z-23’s torso, the other pink haired echoni just gazed at their guardian with an expression that said ‘just fix it already!’.
Z-23 would happily keep looking out the window until the squeezing from Z-9 clued her in that there might be something else going on. “Are we not supposed to be going down?” she asked, naturally the one person here the most capable of flying on their own was the least concerned about loss of altitude. “Computer? Hello?! Uh… 444!!!?...Doris?!.... Wazu?!.... Caxia?!....” It was the quietness that clued her into something being wrong, “DOCTOR KAYBEE! No one is talking to me!”
“Of course not dear, the computer is off. One moment.” Seems he was the only one here qualified to fix the machine, which suited him fine. It was enjoyable to be useful. Actually he already had a fix in mind, and the presence of his two companions was lucky. Hopefully they could be trusted to follow orders, for a little bit at least. “The computer has been hit by stray EM waves from something below us, and the EMP shielding was off. Easy fix, as long as we do it before we unceremoniously crash to the ground. Z-23, I require your surplus power, if you don’t mind.” The Machine Doctor kneeled before the computer, staring at the inner workings.
“OK… I’ll just… I’ll scoot over there.” Z-23 said, looking around the interior of the craft for a moment to figure out just how she was going to do that. Z-9 was tightly wedged around her torso but moving might dislodge her and Z-23 needed both of her hands to hold herself up against the viewing port. The thing that Doctor Kaybee wanted her to mess with was over on the other side of the craft too… but the floor was really flat and the walls had this red mesh net-strap-web thing on them so she could probably just grab onto that. The Echoni would put one arm around Z-9 to hold her in place and then let go of the wall to…
!!!!
Z-23 started sliding along the floor towards the cockpit now that she was no longer holding onto anything. A slightly panicked expression flashing across her face as she aimed her arm over at the other side of the craft and:
*WHOOOOOOSH!-CLANK*
“Ha!”
Triumph! Z-23’s rocket-assisted arm latched onto the webbing near the panel that Doctor Kaybee was looking at. Her arm then started to retract, the cable retracting into the arm-socket and pulling across the ship towards the other side with Z-9 still in tow.
Their hanger-on didn’t last long, though, falling off and rolling into the other side of the cockpit bulkhead with an annoyed squeak. Turns out they weren’t holding onto the chibi jet fighter as a survival mechanism, they just genuinely wanted to ignore the situation and go back to sleep.
With the negative g-force slowly increasing and the craft gradually dipping forwards, that didn’t seem like much of an option now, though…
Shadows rippled across the interior, changing the internal glow into a muddy turquoise. They were in the cloud layer now. Just a slight rumbling sound, and the sensation of buffeting air under their feet.
“‘Xemplar metal man! You just gonna let this thing crash?” Z-9 added unhelpfully, now finally awake and righting themselves properly. “Just jam the cables in ZeeTweny and let ‘er do it!”
Dr. KB was perfectly stable, as his feet magnetized to the floor. Perks of his body. “Of course I won’t let it crash, we have plenty of time before an untimely end.” He pulled the power cord from the panel, and handed it to Z-23. “Would you mind helping me dear? Then we can move on without fearing a sudden stop.”
Z-23 really was the most logical choice, since their large thruster-bearing caboose had multiple power transfer sockets amongst the gimballed joints and fuel canister attachment points. It wasn’t too hard to simply flip a cap up on the side of their waist and plug the standardized charging cable in.
From there, the main computer made a satisfying beep, and then a circular progress bar. Lines of holographic six-cog data was projected onto the underside of the windscreen, rapidly culminating with an OS suite. Just four large rectangles floating in the air, giving a fairly obvious route towards either running diagnostics, or restarting the engine…
One last decision, then; Did they have time to make sure it wasn’t just going to blow up when jolting back to life?
Z-23 also had this menu ported directly into their head, too, of course… As well as the option to attach themselves as an ‘auxiliary control device’. Whatever that meant.
“Well done Z-23!” Praise was important for child-like entities, so they would continue doing praiseworthy actions. Parenting! KB pulled a cord from one of his palms and jacked into the computer. He would assist the machine by adding his own processing power to it’s diagnostics scan, and then activating the scan itself.
Development of New Cambridge and Concourse Gamma was flowing smoothly, but the focus on military infrastructure had left the transport connections between the two megastructure assemblies a little lacking. Probably the best that could be expected from a frontier planet in the middle of an independence movement.
This situation led to Dr.Knowledgebot and two heavy Echoni units being transported by an independent tilt rotor, across a wide and unpredictable area of swamp land known to the Grawla as ‘Voz’... It had no human name, because humans had never been or had reason to go there.
At least the weapons expo had gone well. The two Echoni Z-23 and Z-9, were all dolled up in their best dresses for morale purposes, currently lit by the orange glow of a morning sun, strained through the small repeated portholes of the spacious aft cargo bay.
Cotton clouds of blue and grey streamed past underneath them, making the virulent green terrain far below look… Simply unreal, as if computer generated, or part of some vast wargaming diorama.
It was supremely peaceful, with nary a noise but the distant hum of the engines…
Until the -wu-pap- sound of an electromagnetic spike.
The interior lights went off? And the engines weren’t making a noise at all now?...
That probably wasn’t good…
But at least it made it a bit easier to hear things, Z-23 seemed unconcerned, her push-cart pulled right up to one of the porthole windows so she could put her nose right up against the glass. The Echoni seemed enthralled with all the things outside and she was eager to get to see as much of them as possible. She’d already expressed her amazement at how big this room was, and how it was even bigger than Azathoth, and how she wanted to go down and see the stuff up close, and how this was so much better than her room in Alpha-complex! This craft’s rate of descent was noticeable, especially for an Echoni such as Z-23 who was built to know such things. “OH! Think we’re gonna go down there and look at all the stuff?!” she asked excitedly.
Dr. Knowledgebot had volunteered for the previous weapons expo for personal reasons, mostly to analyze weapons designs and formulate his own for future projects. He had resigned himself to then playing babysitter for two chaotic meat machines. They were like children, disallowed a real childhood, and as such he couldn’t find anger towards them. The malfunction brought up a wartime concern, for if the transportation industry fails them the ladder falls out from under them. He would have to fix this, and upload the patch notes so this didn’t happen again. The Echoni probably wouldn’t think of that. Perhaps this would be an interesting exercise in parenting.
His eyes ran over the engine, analyzing where the problem could be. “It would be preferable if we fixed it, yes. That way this can be fixed in future, and so Hawking doesn’t need to pay for a new transport. All will be well, I am on the job.”
Nothing seemed visually wrong in terms of the craft’s structure. There weren't even any human pilots to panic over the situation… Though the total silence of the simple AI control system in itself was probably a big clue in itself to what had gone wrong.
There was a manual analog keypad for restarting the system in the cockpit, one of the only features in an otherwise flat black glass panel. Kind of a wonder they even put front windows in, for all the consideration they apparently put into driving this thing with honest to goodness organic hands.
Turning around and facing back towards the cargo bay hatch, the problem might be a tad more apparent; There was an independent computer node for the power transfer system, and it seems that somebody had simply forgotten to put the maintenance panel back on.
Including the EMP shielding plate… So… The main computer wasn’t getting power. And the system that regulated it got popped by something they flew over.
Refusing to stir from their nap, arms wrapped around Z-23’s torso, the other pink haired echoni just gazed at their guardian with an expression that said ‘just fix it already!’.
Z-23 would happily keep looking out the window until the squeezing from Z-9 clued her in that there might be something else going on. “Are we not supposed to be going down?” she asked, naturally the one person here the most capable of flying on their own was the least concerned about loss of altitude. “Computer? Hello?! Uh… 444!!!?...Doris?!.... Wazu?!.... Caxia?!....” It was the quietness that clued her into something being wrong, “DOCTOR KAYBEE! No one is talking to me!”
“Of course not dear, the computer is off. One moment.” Seems he was the only one here qualified to fix the machine, which suited him fine. It was enjoyable to be useful. Actually he already had a fix in mind, and the presence of his two companions was lucky. Hopefully they could be trusted to follow orders, for a little bit at least. “The computer has been hit by stray EM waves from something below us, and the EMP shielding was off. Easy fix, as long as we do it before we unceremoniously crash to the ground. Z-23, I require your surplus power, if you don’t mind.” The Machine Doctor kneeled before the computer, staring at the inner workings.
“OK… I’ll just… I’ll scoot over there.” Z-23 said, looking around the interior of the craft for a moment to figure out just how she was going to do that. Z-9 was tightly wedged around her torso but moving might dislodge her and Z-23 needed both of her hands to hold herself up against the viewing port. The thing that Doctor Kaybee wanted her to mess with was over on the other side of the craft too… but the floor was really flat and the walls had this red mesh net-strap-web thing on them so she could probably just grab onto that. The Echoni would put one arm around Z-9 to hold her in place and then let go of the wall to…
!!!!
Z-23 started sliding along the floor towards the cockpit now that she was no longer holding onto anything. A slightly panicked expression flashing across her face as she aimed her arm over at the other side of the craft and:
*WHOOOOOOSH!-CLANK*
“Ha!”
Triumph! Z-23’s rocket-assisted arm latched onto the webbing near the panel that Doctor Kaybee was looking at. Her arm then started to retract, the cable retracting into the arm-socket and pulling across the ship towards the other side with Z-9 still in tow.
Their hanger-on didn’t last long, though, falling off and rolling into the other side of the cockpit bulkhead with an annoyed squeak. Turns out they weren’t holding onto the chibi jet fighter as a survival mechanism, they just genuinely wanted to ignore the situation and go back to sleep.
With the negative g-force slowly increasing and the craft gradually dipping forwards, that didn’t seem like much of an option now, though…
Shadows rippled across the interior, changing the internal glow into a muddy turquoise. They were in the cloud layer now. Just a slight rumbling sound, and the sensation of buffeting air under their feet.
“‘Xemplar metal man! You just gonna let this thing crash?” Z-9 added unhelpfully, now finally awake and righting themselves properly. “Just jam the cables in ZeeTweny and let ‘er do it!”
Dr. KB was perfectly stable, as his feet magnetized to the floor. Perks of his body. “Of course I won’t let it crash, we have plenty of time before an untimely end.” He pulled the power cord from the panel, and handed it to Z-23. “Would you mind helping me dear? Then we can move on without fearing a sudden stop.”
Z-23 really was the most logical choice, since their large thruster-bearing caboose had multiple power transfer sockets amongst the gimballed joints and fuel canister attachment points. It wasn’t too hard to simply flip a cap up on the side of their waist and plug the standardized charging cable in.
From there, the main computer made a satisfying beep, and then a circular progress bar. Lines of holographic six-cog data was projected onto the underside of the windscreen, rapidly culminating with an OS suite. Just four large rectangles floating in the air, giving a fairly obvious route towards either running diagnostics, or restarting the engine…
One last decision, then; Did they have time to make sure it wasn’t just going to blow up when jolting back to life?
Z-23 also had this menu ported directly into their head, too, of course… As well as the option to attach themselves as an ‘auxiliary control device’. Whatever that meant.
“Well done Z-23!” Praise was important for child-like entities, so they would continue doing praiseworthy actions. Parenting! KB pulled a cord from one of his palms and jacked into the computer. He would assist the machine by adding his own processing power to it’s diagnostics scan, and then activating the scan itself.