The explosion squirted me out from under the front bumper like a melon seed from a straw, and I barely managed to grab onto the bumper itself on the way out. I could feel the cat whiskers sensation of air flowing against the back of my hands, and as the blast wave and gushing atmosphere faded, I peered under the bus.
The hatch had blown, but it had also blown the collar connecting it to the central core of the reaver vessel. I made my way back into the bus and to the hatch.
Activating some floodlights on my suit, I examined the wreckage. The hatch itself was just gone, as was the frame surrounding it. A jagged hole was in the floor of the bus now, with a blossoming hole in the corresponding section of core. I figured the diameter of the smaller core wall section to be about three feet.
I wondered at the sharpness of the blast-cut edges, and was thinking about rummaging around in my satchel for something to cut, maybe some more C4, when I realized I was dwadling. I shut off my lights, slapped a fresh clip into my Ruger and pushed off of the bus roof into the hole.
I slammed into a flat surface inside the bus, in total darkness. As I soaked the momentum of the landing into bent knees and a sort-of half-assed dive forward, I smashed into a wall.
Reeling from the impact, I started floating back out the hole I had come in. I extended my arms on either side of me, and one hand flailed in vacuum. The other, fortunately, found a ladder. I grabbed on and pulled myself back to the floor, then pushed the button for a flash.
The flashbulb burst from my main suit lights was enough to gather data for my HUD, which then painted a picture of the room I was in. Approximately 4 foot square, with some crinkling near the top, and a dogged hatch to my left.
I was in an airlock, and it was intact.
I cursed again, digging into my satchel hastily. I got another brick of C4 out, and skipped the molding part, hammering it onto the hatch as fast and hard as I could. Once I had a fair sized blob stuck to the hatch, about a foot in diameter with a big hump in the middle, I stuck the detonator wires into it and lashed them off to the ladder. I jumped out of the hole and back into the bus.
I wedged myself between two rows of seats a few seats aft of the hatch, clipped-and-stripped the detonator wire into my detonator, and pushed the button again.
Nothing happened, which made sense when a space suited figure came hurtling out of the hole in the floor of the bus. I panicked, grabbing for my pistol in its holster, and tugged myself towards the hole in the floor with the detonator wire clipped into my forearm. As I flew across the floor, I saw three bullet holes appear in the seat I had just been occupying, and my adrenaline rose to levels I had not believed possible as I grabbed the wires trailing from my left wrist with my right hand, ripped them out, and slammed my left hand into the holster, as my right hand grabbed a seat leg, turning me over and bringing my torso up as my left hand came up and I pumped the entire clip into the poor dumb bastard.
He started twitching, and I have to admit, I sat there for a few seconds pointing the gun and pulling the trigger repeatedly, before I snapped out of it and reloaded. I waited a few more minutes, so my hands could stop shaking, and pulled myself forward to look into the hole.
The detonator cable floated loose, pulled out of the C4. The hatch was ajar, so that worked out just fine. I pushed off against the ceiling again, and floated into the airlock. Coming to a much more manageable stop this time, and with my suitlights on and my gun in my hand, I pushed the hatch all the way open.
And that, really, was the end of that. The last dude to come out the hatch really was the last dude manning the vessel, which our best guess designates as a simple troop delivery vehicle. It explains why it was behind the 'assault waves', anyway. There really wasn't any technological benefit to the theft of this vessel, but there is a certain morale benefit 'for the fleet', and the AI Group says that they should be able to extract some good data from the ship's (nonsentient) computer core, once they've broken the encryption.
I ended up unharmed, though through nothing but sheer dumb luck, it seems. I've been trying to find a way to stop Reaver ships remotely, and this is the third one I've boarded. The first one was nearly destroyed before I got to it, the second one was taken out by a hardsuiter, and some imbecile brought it into a dock before cleaning it. I'm pretty damn stoic, but I can't get any real good information out of a ship that literally runs bloody chunks out its scuppers.
And, all three ships were totally different. Like their namesake, these Reavers don't use mass production ships. Even if they did, they use an incredibly durable blend of automation and manual controls/backups, lots of hydraulic/fluidic and optical systems.
In conclusion, there's no simple way to disarm or disable a Reaver ship. Overvoltages may blow power plants or short command wiring, which may cause a ship to become unpilotable. May. EM Pulse may kill computers that may disable control or navigation or weapons.
May.
Flame, Acid, Kinetics, Beam, Concussion, Grav.. None of the commonly available weapons are going to have the same effect on any two Reaver ships. Common Knowledge supports this, with a pencil-laser strike penetrating one Reaver ship and causing it to detonate. This detonation slabbed off a big enough chunk with enough momentum behind it to strike one of it's cohort with destructive force, nearly cleaving it in two. The afflicted vessel was seen to have _worked itself apart_, in the way that someone will bend the lid off a soup can, and both parts fought on.
Sorry to file such a negative report, but the facts speak for themselves on this one. I'm doing alright, though I request a few weeks of downtime to let the nightmares subside a little before I get sent back out.
Yours,
WG, Combat Intel.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
The hatch had blown, but it had also blown the collar connecting it to the central core of the reaver vessel. I made my way back into the bus and to the hatch.
Activating some floodlights on my suit, I examined the wreckage. The hatch itself was just gone, as was the frame surrounding it. A jagged hole was in the floor of the bus now, with a blossoming hole in the corresponding section of core. I figured the diameter of the smaller core wall section to be about three feet.
I wondered at the sharpness of the blast-cut edges, and was thinking about rummaging around in my satchel for something to cut, maybe some more C4, when I realized I was dwadling. I shut off my lights, slapped a fresh clip into my Ruger and pushed off of the bus roof into the hole.
I slammed into a flat surface inside the bus, in total darkness. As I soaked the momentum of the landing into bent knees and a sort-of half-assed dive forward, I smashed into a wall.
Reeling from the impact, I started floating back out the hole I had come in. I extended my arms on either side of me, and one hand flailed in vacuum. The other, fortunately, found a ladder. I grabbed on and pulled myself back to the floor, then pushed the button for a flash.
The flashbulb burst from my main suit lights was enough to gather data for my HUD, which then painted a picture of the room I was in. Approximately 4 foot square, with some crinkling near the top, and a dogged hatch to my left.
I was in an airlock, and it was intact.
I cursed again, digging into my satchel hastily. I got another brick of C4 out, and skipped the molding part, hammering it onto the hatch as fast and hard as I could. Once I had a fair sized blob stuck to the hatch, about a foot in diameter with a big hump in the middle, I stuck the detonator wires into it and lashed them off to the ladder. I jumped out of the hole and back into the bus.
I wedged myself between two rows of seats a few seats aft of the hatch, clipped-and-stripped the detonator wire into my detonator, and pushed the button again.
Nothing happened, which made sense when a space suited figure came hurtling out of the hole in the floor of the bus. I panicked, grabbing for my pistol in its holster, and tugged myself towards the hole in the floor with the detonator wire clipped into my forearm. As I flew across the floor, I saw three bullet holes appear in the seat I had just been occupying, and my adrenaline rose to levels I had not believed possible as I grabbed the wires trailing from my left wrist with my right hand, ripped them out, and slammed my left hand into the holster, as my right hand grabbed a seat leg, turning me over and bringing my torso up as my left hand came up and I pumped the entire clip into the poor dumb bastard.
He started twitching, and I have to admit, I sat there for a few seconds pointing the gun and pulling the trigger repeatedly, before I snapped out of it and reloaded. I waited a few more minutes, so my hands could stop shaking, and pulled myself forward to look into the hole.
The detonator cable floated loose, pulled out of the C4. The hatch was ajar, so that worked out just fine. I pushed off against the ceiling again, and floated into the airlock. Coming to a much more manageable stop this time, and with my suitlights on and my gun in my hand, I pushed the hatch all the way open.
And that, really, was the end of that. The last dude to come out the hatch really was the last dude manning the vessel, which our best guess designates as a simple troop delivery vehicle. It explains why it was behind the 'assault waves', anyway. There really wasn't any technological benefit to the theft of this vessel, but there is a certain morale benefit 'for the fleet', and the AI Group says that they should be able to extract some good data from the ship's (nonsentient) computer core, once they've broken the encryption.
I ended up unharmed, though through nothing but sheer dumb luck, it seems. I've been trying to find a way to stop Reaver ships remotely, and this is the third one I've boarded. The first one was nearly destroyed before I got to it, the second one was taken out by a hardsuiter, and some imbecile brought it into a dock before cleaning it. I'm pretty damn stoic, but I can't get any real good information out of a ship that literally runs bloody chunks out its scuppers.
And, all three ships were totally different. Like their namesake, these Reavers don't use mass production ships. Even if they did, they use an incredibly durable blend of automation and manual controls/backups, lots of hydraulic/fluidic and optical systems.
In conclusion, there's no simple way to disarm or disable a Reaver ship. Overvoltages may blow power plants or short command wiring, which may cause a ship to become unpilotable. May. EM Pulse may kill computers that may disable control or navigation or weapons.
May.
Flame, Acid, Kinetics, Beam, Concussion, Grav.. None of the commonly available weapons are going to have the same effect on any two Reaver ships. Common Knowledge supports this, with a pencil-laser strike penetrating one Reaver ship and causing it to detonate. This detonation slabbed off a big enough chunk with enough momentum behind it to strike one of it's cohort with destructive force, nearly cleaving it in two. The afflicted vessel was seen to have _worked itself apart_, in the way that someone will bend the lid off a soup can, and both parts fought on.
Sorry to file such a negative report, but the facts speak for themselves on this one. I'm doing alright, though I request a few weeks of downtime to let the nightmares subside a little before I get sent back out.
Yours,
WG, Combat Intel.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979