Gathering Storm

[Jax Xefern]

Jax pinged the hallway and stared at the imager. There he was, there Auren was, the walls, floors, and ceiling. But not even a whisper of a creature or person otherwise. "Nothing. It's officially feeling like a bad prank now." He stood and looked both directions, turning his head to do so, before point the direction Auren had covered. "Best guess is the stacks are somewhere adjacent to the ventilation shaft, those things churn out a ridiculous amount of heat."

He started that direction, pinged once more, and then switched to a quick thermal scan. His helmet didn't have the scanning capacity to do much more than show gradients but that was more than good enough for finding people in the dark and spotting machinery at a distance. Jax pointed at the left wall not a dozen meters down the hallway from the hole they'd created. "This will be it. Lets hope the things didn't do a number on this data center like they did on the colony's." He gestured the barrel of his weapon at the key swipe by the door they found and took up a low shooting stance in front of the door itself so Auren could use the card he'd tossed her earlier.

[Auren Donos]

It was almost more worrying not finding something than if they had come across the creature's lair or something. Auren never did like being sent on a wild goose chase. However, in this case, if it increased the odds of them making it off Arkania alive, she would take it. "Hey, if that thing stays in hiding, it's all good to me," she admitted. "Sure, it'd be great to try to take it down, but..." She shrugged. Knowing what these things were was one thing, but being able to do something about them if and when they escaped would be quite another. Hell, it didn't even sound as though the scientists themselves were able to get a handle on it, and that was the most concerning thing of all.

It didn't take Jax long to find what he thought were the stacks,, and Auren nodded, fumbling the key card for just a moment as she caught it from him. "That's right, put the squishy human in the way of whatever might be behind that door," she chuckled, shaking her head. Moving to the other side of the door, Auren pressed herself against the wall, and swiped the card through the door, immediately bringing her blaster up, ready to have a look at anything that might come through the door itself.

[Jax Xefern]

"Yeah, I think I can live with never actually seeing one face to face too." Sometimes, knowing who was tougher was grand. Usually, though, it was just as good to simply be alive when all was said and done.

Jax chuckled in lue of smiling, since she couldn't see the smile. It was becoming a habit. "Well, stand to the side and hit the button, Squishy." She opened the door and Jax was rewarded with a view of the interior of a server room overlapped with the sights of his weapon and his helmet's Heads Up Display. "Good news, your squishy nature isn't a factor yet." He stood and stepped into the room, turning his shoulders so as not to get hung up as he passed through the doorway. He checked all his lines of sight and stepped a bit further in.

"There should be a terminal for access, see if what he gave us gives you access." And indeed it would, when Auren found the flip down keyboard and tiny access screen. Meanwhile, Jax moved around the room pinging the access panels and ventilation ducts with his sonar device. That was, after he closed the door behind them. It was just north of comfortably warm, though for Jax that was just about right given that he was cold blooded. His suit put his environment control on low power and opened ventilation to the exterior temperature automatically. It smelled like hot electronics, which was akin to burning dust and ozone. Similar to the aftermath of a blaster shoot out on Tatooine.

Auren would find free access to all manner of information but the first command prompt at the top of the cleared for access list was project Hunter-Killer. If opened, it would set up many a file for her perusal the names of which were more than enough to confirm the project was the one they were looking for. However, the information was so vast that it would take hours to download.

[Auren Donos]

Knowing that Jax would also rather get out of the facility without coming face to face with one of those creatures, those "seed pods", as the scientist had called them, went a long way to making Auren feel just a little bit better about the niggling little nugget of fear that had settled uncomfortably and unfamiliarly in the pit of her stomach. For once, Auren felt outmatched. It wasn't as though this was just another person, someone with weapons, or who could fight: this was a whole new species.

She blew a raspberry as Jax stated the obvious, and, within moments, Auren stood off to one side, before pressing the door access button. The doos swished open, and Jax surveyed it, giving it the all clear. Following in, but not without checking that they hadn't been tracked by the creature, Auren nodded as Jax told her to look for a terminal.

It didn't take her long, and she wiped away little beads of sweat in the warm room. The stench gave away the fact that electronics had been fried in this room recently, and Auren had to hope that it wouldn't have damaged what it was that they were looking for.

"Fan-frakking-tastic," she murmured, finding "Hunter Killer" glaring out at her from the screen, a broad grin daring to slip into place. There was a lot of information, though, and she had no idea which of the files would be the one that they needed. "Hey big man, get your shiny metal ass over here and have a look at this. How fast could you get all this data? That fancy-schmancy suit of yours gonna be any help, or we gonna have to take pot luck?"

[Jax Xefern]

Jax smiled in his helmet at the raspberry.

After clearing the room by walking a quick circuit of it he returned to the entrance and secured the door behind them. Then he joined Auren at the tiny monitor when she asked her question. One glance at the file size of the very first file had him shaking his head. "It's not designed for storage, even the facial recognition program relies on my ability to uplink with my ship for most of the faces stored in it. I imagine the room is shielded, even if we weren't too far under bedrock for a signal to go through... so about three days worth of walking back and forth and hoping that breaking up files didn't corrupt any data."

He looked at the room, filled as it was with stacks of servers and storage units... that was when it hit him and Jax a-ha'd. "I've got it! Find a tertiary stack, something like HR or environment control. Clear it out, transfer everything on the project to it, and then tell me where it's at." While she, presumably, set to that task Jax grabbed a stack frame and examined it. Everything in there was modular and that meant there would be other peices for expanding or left over after a unit reduction. It took a minute or so of searching but he came up with some spare shelving stuff. Looked like an erector set, really. He immediately set to putting together a tight set of shelves, leaving the rear bracing spars off it for the moment.

"You got it set up yet?"

[Auren Donos]

"Druk."

It was a heartfelt curse from Auren, and she almost spat to punctuate it. She had had no idea of the capabilities of Jax's suit, so it had been worth suggesting it, but now they were at a dead end again. They might not even have minutes, much less hours or days, so if they wanted the data, they were going to have to find another way to get it and take it with them. While she was proficient with computer and data systems, she was by no means a whiz, so some creative thinking was in order. "Maybe your suit's next upgrade could include data storage, big man," she said, more than a hint of dry sarcasm in her voice. It was unlikely the function would ever be needed again, not really.

She glanced across at Jax, even as he proclaimed to have an idea. And it was a good one, too. She nodded, an impressed expression on her face. "So you're not just a shiny suit of armour," she grinned, quickly scanning the system for a suitable data storage module. It didn't take long, and, with a few commands, did exactly as she was bid. "Fourth stack to your right, second unit from bottom," she said, deftly wiping and rewriting the payroll server. Seemed kinda fitting. "Give it... maybe two, three minutes, and it's all yours."

[Jax Xefern]

"Such dirty words coming out of such a purty mouth."

Jax stayed on his task as she worked and then glanced up to identify the set of servers she was talking about, setting them in his HUD as a target. "It has enough work to do carrying me, I didn't come here reckoning to gank data quite like this. I was hoping for final results, on a data stick, something polished and ready for presentation to the authorities. Damned inconsiderate of these people not to have that waiting for us at the front desk."

He finished his frame, carried it over to the stack, and set it on its face. When the time had elapsed he pulled the servers clean out of their racks and placed them in the stack he had created. When the entire thing had been moved over he sealed it up and closed the framework with a few extra screws. He then hefted the whole thing. "Damn, too big to go in my pack... looks like I'm hefting this thing the whole way. You ready to leave before this place becomes a fireball?"

[Auren Donos]

Auren merely twitched her eyebrows upwards at Jax's comment. "A lot comes outta this mouth that would surprise you," she grinned, quickly getting back to the task in hand.

She chuckled. "You saying you need your suit to get around now? Is it hiding a fat boy in there?" She was kidding, of course. She had no idea what he looked like under his suit, aside from his head. For all she knew, he could just be a metre tall, with a head that far outstripped his body in size. Now that would be something amusing. "Just can't get the help these days, can you," she tutted, her fingers flying over the keypad, making sure that the transfer was going smoothly.

It was.

"See, you're not just a pretty suit of armour," she chuckled, as Jax dropped the frame down and loaded it with the servers. "You'll make someone a great wife some day. You know, I'd offer to help, but that damn thing probably weighs more than I do." She glanced at the door. "So... how're we gonna get out of here without having to get out the same way we came in?"

[Jax Xefern]

"You're in luck, some fellas like that in a woman," he chuckled back.

Jax hefted the container and his heavy blaster and sighed. He put the container back down and put his heavy blaster into a set of braces on the side of his pack that appeared to be just for that. Then he hefted the container again as he drew the Bryar Pistol that served as his side arm. At close range those things hit just like a rifle. "Considering some of the places I go and the people I meet... yes, I need it to get around." He gestured at their current situation, trusting her awareness to see not just the walls but the creatures and the exploding doom they faced as well.

"Nope. Also got a pretty body glove on, and some fairly nice socks too." He chuckled and moved to the door with his burden in tow. "You proposing, then?" He regarded the door for a long moment, watching his HUD display the creature prowling by on the other side, and kept his voice just as conversational as it had ever been. "When we leave out of here I say we do exactly that, go back the way we came -except- we go all the way to the top of the shaft. I can disarm the explosives from my HUD, we get out, rearm them, then run like crazy for the exit. As soon as we're top side I make the call and Hettir picks all three of us up so we can make distance before the fireball."