02-14-2021, 06:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-14-2021, 03:14 PM by Nika Raskov.)
Ringing. Her ears rang. Was it in her head? Head or ears. She couldn’t tell. The beam of light was the rough equivalent voltage-wise to a lightning strike, if she remembered the stats correctly. Her suit had taken the brunt of the massive charge. Nika didn’t need the forearm readout on her dead screen to know that; she was colder. The automatic comfort settings were no longer functioning. Like everything else. She’d released herself from the pack and dropped to the floor, leaving the webbing to dangle. Nika couldn’t say with clarity whether or not she’d lost consciousness. That probably meant yes but it had taken forever, it seemed, for the halos of light to dissipate. At least she could see now. Around a mild headache.
It mildly amused her that she could be blinded twice. More blind? More blind was, well, more accurate. She laughed and the sound echoed in the confined space. Thank God for therapists. She was doing alright now. All of her focus was on the problem at hand and it was a significant problem. Problems. The distraction was welcome as it pushed the panic away. At the moment establishing communication with her drones was at the top of the list. There was no escaping the pod without help from outside. Not if this was what she thought it was. No. She knew what this was. Fuck. She was fucked. Scale of one to ten? Six. At least. This was an Explosive Ordinance Containment Disposal Shell. Designed by zee Germans. There was nothing else it could be. Smooth walls, no seams. Definitely. She’d run her fingers over every surface. She was a thousand percent certain.
Nika took stock of her inventory. She needed power. Obviously. But the main batteries in her suit were fried. Her helmet might be salvageable as that had a separate power source. So then she’d need to try and salvage the auxiliary batteries woven into the suit liner’s fabric. Which meant she had to remove her exo-suit and cut them out from the inside because even her knives would have a hard time penetrating the armor and exterior weave.
She had no idea how long she’d been at flaying the little things. It became a routine though. Carve out a patch of fabric, split the weave carefully as there was no way to detect them otherwise, and then carefully extract the little rectangles. She made a pile during the mindless work and worked around the next step in her head. These things weren’t ever meant to be used externally. They held a minute amount of energy but were basically self-charging once powered up. Nika had no idea how many of them it would take to power her communications. This presented another problem. There was no way to know the battery polarity without a wiring diagram or a multimeter. She had neither. Connecting them incorrectly would fry them and there was a one in four chance to get it right. Nika stared at the pile of trash in her lap. Fuck.
Tapeworm. Or half-sticks of gum which was less gross. She’d been at it a long time. The battery pile had amassed to fill both boots tamped down. Her baselayer did a good job of insulating from the chill of the obsidian egg-prison however it did nothing to help her numb ass from sitting too long. Tired of drooling around the flashlight in her mouth, the webbing on the wall held it now. The light was more than enough for the space and would last longer than she’d live if whomever had set this up intended on leaving her in here to die. If it were her, that’s what she’d do to kill herself. Nika for all her skill as an assassin was after all, completely neutralized in this thing. So her thoughts bounced around a bit. The flashlight potentially outlasting her gave way to a wry laugh every once in a while. That power unit would be more than enough for communications but the case was not penetrable by anything she currently had at her disposal. Sure a grenade might do the trick but it would also kill her and probably destroy the battery. Same with a bullet. So again, here she was with plan F. Nika Raskov, super seamstress...or whatever you called someone who did shit like this.
During a break she’d found the battery that powered the HUD inside her helmet seemed to be unscathed, if discharged. Nika didn’t question what was grounded and not during the surge. It made sense though that the explosion from the case had knocked it offline. She figured she’d take the good luck as it came.
After tearing apart the suit lining, the helmet itself was next. She tried to keep everything relatively organized but it was not a large area to work in. Crap was everywhere between the fibers of filleted fabric to the actual suit skin. She’d folded the big pieces and sat on them to help her dead butt, the rest of the debris was just there like she was building a nest or something.
The aperture helmet was also partially disassembled, crudely, because she only had knives for tools. Wires were exposed and hanging, some spliced while others cut completely in an effort to power only the essentials. That meant no visual, only audio. The EOCDS that held her would allow signals out by default and with interface, in as well.
By twos, Nika mated the little power cells and twisted the fine wire leads together at either ends of the soft rectangles. Those were carefully lined up on her left leg so they didn’t touch one another. When the real estate was full, she tested the union on the flashlight casing. The charge indicator appeared when the polarity was correct. The bad couples she stuffed in her baselayer shirt, they were soft after all, and the good ones she laid out on her right leg. There were many more bad couples. Three left legs to fill one right. Once her right leg was full, those were in turn mated into foursomes. Half the batch was a loss. This process was repeated until her good stack was two inches thick. Nika then wove the leads around a thicker pilfered wire and touched the two ends to the good com battery.
Nothing. Nika held her breath for what seemed an age. A blue charge indicator lit up. “YEAH!” Her outburst was loud in the enclosed space.
She felt a surge of hope. The whole process was repeated until six such packs of gum were wired in. It had taken a god awfully long time and her shirt was stuffed with failures.
Nika keyed into her audio. Transmitting only. Now hopefully the perimeter microdrones hadn’t been fried by the lightning. “DADS Receive. If you can hear me, park com relay-capable drones on the EOCDS. Acknowledge with audio.” Nika giggled and brought out her Sean Connery. “Single ping only.”
A lifetime seemed to pass before a tone sounded in her earpiece. This brought on another whoop. The drones weren’t equipped with speech capabilities. “Alright, one ping for yes, two pings for no. Do you understand?” Ping. “Are there any other humans within our tactical area of operation?” Moment of truth. Ping. Ping. Excellent! Or not but at least she wasn’t having to immediately deal with being attacked or hauled off to who knew where. “Three pings if you detect anyone besides me until I’m out of here. Widen the scout area to insertion point. Acknowledge with one ping.” Ping. ”Connect me to Gillian. Secure channel.”
It mildly amused her that she could be blinded twice. More blind? More blind was, well, more accurate. She laughed and the sound echoed in the confined space. Thank God for therapists. She was doing alright now. All of her focus was on the problem at hand and it was a significant problem. Problems. The distraction was welcome as it pushed the panic away. At the moment establishing communication with her drones was at the top of the list. There was no escaping the pod without help from outside. Not if this was what she thought it was. No. She knew what this was. Fuck. She was fucked. Scale of one to ten? Six. At least. This was an Explosive Ordinance Containment Disposal Shell. Designed by zee Germans. There was nothing else it could be. Smooth walls, no seams. Definitely. She’d run her fingers over every surface. She was a thousand percent certain.
Nika took stock of her inventory. She needed power. Obviously. But the main batteries in her suit were fried. Her helmet might be salvageable as that had a separate power source. So then she’d need to try and salvage the auxiliary batteries woven into the suit liner’s fabric. Which meant she had to remove her exo-suit and cut them out from the inside because even her knives would have a hard time penetrating the armor and exterior weave.
She had no idea how long she’d been at flaying the little things. It became a routine though. Carve out a patch of fabric, split the weave carefully as there was no way to detect them otherwise, and then carefully extract the little rectangles. She made a pile during the mindless work and worked around the next step in her head. These things weren’t ever meant to be used externally. They held a minute amount of energy but were basically self-charging once powered up. Nika had no idea how many of them it would take to power her communications. This presented another problem. There was no way to know the battery polarity without a wiring diagram or a multimeter. She had neither. Connecting them incorrectly would fry them and there was a one in four chance to get it right. Nika stared at the pile of trash in her lap. Fuck.
Tapeworm. Or half-sticks of gum which was less gross. She’d been at it a long time. The battery pile had amassed to fill both boots tamped down. Her baselayer did a good job of insulating from the chill of the obsidian egg-prison however it did nothing to help her numb ass from sitting too long. Tired of drooling around the flashlight in her mouth, the webbing on the wall held it now. The light was more than enough for the space and would last longer than she’d live if whomever had set this up intended on leaving her in here to die. If it were her, that’s what she’d do to kill herself. Nika for all her skill as an assassin was after all, completely neutralized in this thing. So her thoughts bounced around a bit. The flashlight potentially outlasting her gave way to a wry laugh every once in a while. That power unit would be more than enough for communications but the case was not penetrable by anything she currently had at her disposal. Sure a grenade might do the trick but it would also kill her and probably destroy the battery. Same with a bullet. So again, here she was with plan F. Nika Raskov, super seamstress...or whatever you called someone who did shit like this.
During a break she’d found the battery that powered the HUD inside her helmet seemed to be unscathed, if discharged. Nika didn’t question what was grounded and not during the surge. It made sense though that the explosion from the case had knocked it offline. She figured she’d take the good luck as it came.
After tearing apart the suit lining, the helmet itself was next. She tried to keep everything relatively organized but it was not a large area to work in. Crap was everywhere between the fibers of filleted fabric to the actual suit skin. She’d folded the big pieces and sat on them to help her dead butt, the rest of the debris was just there like she was building a nest or something.
The aperture helmet was also partially disassembled, crudely, because she only had knives for tools. Wires were exposed and hanging, some spliced while others cut completely in an effort to power only the essentials. That meant no visual, only audio. The EOCDS that held her would allow signals out by default and with interface, in as well.
By twos, Nika mated the little power cells and twisted the fine wire leads together at either ends of the soft rectangles. Those were carefully lined up on her left leg so they didn’t touch one another. When the real estate was full, she tested the union on the flashlight casing. The charge indicator appeared when the polarity was correct. The bad couples she stuffed in her baselayer shirt, they were soft after all, and the good ones she laid out on her right leg. There were many more bad couples. Three left legs to fill one right. Once her right leg was full, those were in turn mated into foursomes. Half the batch was a loss. This process was repeated until her good stack was two inches thick. Nika then wove the leads around a thicker pilfered wire and touched the two ends to the good com battery.
Nothing. Nika held her breath for what seemed an age. A blue charge indicator lit up. “YEAH!” Her outburst was loud in the enclosed space.
She felt a surge of hope. The whole process was repeated until six such packs of gum were wired in. It had taken a god awfully long time and her shirt was stuffed with failures.
Nika keyed into her audio. Transmitting only. Now hopefully the perimeter microdrones hadn’t been fried by the lightning. “DADS Receive. If you can hear me, park com relay-capable drones on the EOCDS. Acknowledge with audio.” Nika giggled and brought out her Sean Connery. “Single ping only.”
A lifetime seemed to pass before a tone sounded in her earpiece. This brought on another whoop. The drones weren’t equipped with speech capabilities. “Alright, one ping for yes, two pings for no. Do you understand?” Ping. “Are there any other humans within our tactical area of operation?” Moment of truth. Ping. Ping. Excellent! Or not but at least she wasn’t having to immediately deal with being attacked or hauled off to who knew where. “Three pings if you detect anyone besides me until I’m out of here. Widen the scout area to insertion point. Acknowledge with one ping.” Ping. ”Connect me to Gillian. Secure channel.”