The Command Centre Thread

I moved it here because I didn't want our brilliance to be deleted after just 5 days.

It was just before 5am and dark in the Command Centre. Faint noises emanated from a few of the computer stations, some backing up data, some scanning and some just patiently waiting for input.
At 5am precisely the main lights flickered on. A few more noises came from other stations as they powered up for the day shift. Five more minutes and a much louder whirring noise filled the room, then stopped. The lift doors opened and a groggy looking Bob Stryder wandered onto the Command Level. He made a bee-line for the drink dispenser and ordered up a cup of traditional English breakfast tea. While the machine happily burbled his tea into the plastic mug Bob took a look at the night shift report. It was, as always, short.

Being a small guild in a safe part of the universe, 7SAM didn't bother with a manned night shift as nothing ever happened. The closest they got was getting one of the senior guild members into the control room at 5am to check the reports and make sure that all the stations automatic systems were running ok.

The only thing to note was the life support system was using more power than usual. The last time that happened it had needed cleaning. Bob added it to the days maintenance schedule. The tea machine beeped and Bob took his tea from the slot and flumped into the chair in front of the main station. He didn't notice the station behind him with a single red flashing LED on the panel.

Bob spent an hour checking through the assorted maintenance reports from the last few weeks. Yukis reports were perect, as always. Helixs reports were scruffy and badly typed but they could be read and the work was first rate, as always. Yuki had been training Neon on some of the stations advanced systems, and Yukis reports said that, apart from getting Neon out of bed, he's coming along well.

Stone doesn't submit reports because, as guild leader, he spends all his time on 'Diplomatic' calls to other guilds. Bob was glad all he had to do was maintain some of the computers. He'd tried the Diplo stuff for a year or so, and didn't enjoy it.

Bob rubbed his eyes, drained his tea, stood up and stretched. He glanced around the Command level once more, thinking to go down to the canteen and be the first in line for the fresh bacon. He eyes fell on the flashing red LED. Frowning, Bob walked over the station to see what the problem was.

The red light was flashing to say that the stations docking bay had been activated during the night.

"What the..." muttered Bob.

He called up the security cameras for the docking bay and saw that a unfamiliar ship had hard docked. He sped the security feed backwards and then forward at normal speed and watched the ship dock, and a few minutes later about 100 armed people left the ship and disappeared into the bowels of the station.

"Bugger." muttered Bob, and hit the comm button for Stonesmith's quarters. "He won't like this..."

Stone rubbed his eyes after speaking with Bob. The intercom 'buzzer' had an annoyingly high pitch. He would have to get that changed to something more soothing. Intruders? Why would someone want to infiltrate 7SAM?

Stone had asked Bob to get everybody up quietly...use intercom not the station paging system. And why the bowels of the station? The only things in the bowels of the station were my office, the archived file/data storage, and the sewage treatment facility.

You know, Helix said he was working on remodeling my old office, but that was months ago, I wonder why it's not done yet....I might have to swing by and look at that later.

After a quick shower and clean uniform, Stone strapped on his PEWPEW 3000 laster pistol and his sawed off Mossberg shotgun. He secured his room and headed toward the command center.

Gonna be another great day in the Delta Galaxy he thought to himself.

The senior officers of [7SAM] had gathered in the Command Centre. Stone and Bob had decided to leave the junior officers and main crew asleep. No point in causing alarm needlessly.

The thirteen senior members had huddled around the tea machine and all now had various teas, coffees, juices and in one case, soup. Most looked more grumpy at being woken up early than intruders being onboard.

Stone dropped into the Command chair, tapped a few buttons on his console and the view of the docking bay appeared on the main screen.

"Anyone recognize it?" he asked. "Type, complement, armament, owners, anything?"

Falks grunted. "Looks like it's about to fall apart." He stepped closer to the screen and indicated various locations on the hull. "Here, here, here. This part by the main drive is really bad."

"Who's heard of the Scavengers?" asked Yuki, quietly. The room fell silent. People stared into the bottoms of their mugs, toyed with buttons, found little bits of fluff to fiddle with, all of them avoiding eye contact with each other and trying to avoid the question.
"Because that ship looks like all the descriptions I've ever heard." finished Yuki.
"The Scavengers are a myth," said Darkwolff, "stories made up by the Astro miners to scare each other in the dark."
"Yuki's right." said Stonesmith. "That looks like a Scavship." He looked around.
"Well, we have to assume it's the Scavs." said Bob. "And we need to assume all the stories are true, no matter how outlandish, unbelievable or horrific they are."

"What stories?" asked Neon. "I've never heard of the Scavengers."

"The Scavengers," began Yuki, "or Scavs, are a group of guilds from a few galaxies, Alpha, Ceti, Delta and Epsilon. They broke away from their home galaxies a couple of hundred years ago. Rumor is that they didn't believe in the non-interference between galaxies and so left and made their homes in the voids between the galaxies. Their engine and power technologies are so far advanced that the huge voids between each galaxy didn't really mean anything." Yuki stopped and sipped his tea. Neon had gone a bit wide eyed.
"So what's the problem?" he asked. "They live in the void. So what?"

"The problem with living in a void is lack of resources." said Bob. Yuki nodded and continued.
"Stories say that they took enough resources for fifty or so years. They carried on breeding, and each extra mouth is another drain on their stocks." Eventually they had to come back to the galaxies to restock. But instead of collecting what they needed the way we do, they took it from people who already had it. The Scavs would sneak up to a guild, and take whatever they could and they would utterly destroy everything else. In some cases the guilds station would disappear completely, the only evidence it even existed were the bodies of the guildies floating, in some cases horribly tortured, where the base used to be."

"Why torture them?" asked Codemango.

"They hate the people who stay in the galaxies." said Stone. "Two bases were found with the life support still working. The crews who boarded the bases gave us reports of rape, torture, murder and pillage. But that was one hundred years ago. There've been no more bases discovered, but some still go missing."

"Since then they've descended into myth and hearsay." said Bob. "Some believe, others don't."

"I'm starting to believe." said Neon.

"We need a plan." said Stone.

Helix moved about the station like air down an ally way. He knew the station inside and out, after all he had designed it. He turned to see Yuki was still behind him, he couldn't help feel somewhat impressed.

The two made their way deeper into the station...

...a short while later they came upon a small group of Scavs.

"Hurry up you dolt" said the first and biggest.
"Shut up! The bloody door wont open!" said the second, smaller Scav
"Will you both shut up. I have a feeling we're being watched." said the third one
"You are." said Helix as he stepped out into the hall.

All three gasped and began to reach for their side arms but were cut down by Helix and Yuki before they could fire.

"That was easy." said Yuki.
"Indeed. But it's early days yet and we are still on the first stage. Wait until we fight the Boss then progress to stage two."

Bob and a couple of redshirts had used one of the secret tunnels to make their way down to the hangar deck. When Falks had designed the station he had cleverly included the tunnels with their various entrances concealed. Even by looking at the blueprints the tunnels were hiding in plain sight. Falks himself admitted that he doesn't know about all of them even though he'd studied the plans extensively.

The tunnel disgorged the small team twenty metres away from the enemy ships main hatch. The loose plan was to board the ship, overpower the (hopefully) small crew left onboard and summon them back to the ship. When they all arrived Stonesmith would vent the atmosphere, activate the hangar bay defences and thus convince the ship to leave. The other part of the plan involved other teams hunting, ambushing and generally pushing the invaders back through the hangar levels towards the bay with their ship.

It was eerily quiet in the bay, with only the life support vents making any noise. Bob crept stealthily along the side of the ship toward the hatch. At his signal Redshirt #1 poked his head around the hatch frame. He signaled that the local area was empty and the team entered the ship.

The ship was a standard Heavy Cruiser configuration, after a bit of investigation the team found evidence that the ship had been built by a guild in the Beta galaxy called [SIOS] Siovis Ostruna. That was irrelevant now, although Bob made a mental note to make some inquiries when this business was finished. Just as the ship was a standard configuration, the computer system on-board was just as unchanged. In fact it was three or maybe four generations older than what [7SAM] were using, and theirs were out of date as they couldn't be bothered to upgrade. This made it so easy for Bob to get into the ships systems it was almost silly. All remaining crew were confined to the areas of the ship they were in, and the engineering section was flooded with an anesthetic gas to put them all to sleep. That way they would only have to fight the people on the bridge. Bob accessed his wrist array and connected it to the ships computer so he could monitor the ships status. The team moved up the corridor towards the bridge.

They got to the bridge doors, prepared themselves, and then opened the doors. It was easy to overcome the few people on the bridge, they'd only been left there as the main crew was currently being hunted in the depths of the station. Bob tapped a button on his wrist array.

"Zero, this is bravo two." he said.
"Bravo two, Zero receiving." came Stonesmiths voice from Bobs wrist. "Sitrep please."
"We have infiltrated the enemy ship. Remaining crew is locked down and we've taken the bridge. Awaiting authorisation to proceed to step two. Over." replied Bob.
"Standby."