08-29-2016, 09:06 AM
Quote:http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?...1#pid81691
Carmelita woke in a sweat, hand clutching her shock pistol instinctively before she realised where she was.
It was still night outside. On one of the monitors, Al3x had a laptop perched on his sandy knees, clearly browsing some site or other. He looked up in surprise as she rose from where she was sleeping.
“Wow, you’re an early riser. There’s still two hours until dawn.”
“Tell Chip I’m getting an early start,” she replied, sourly. “I won’t be getting much sleep after that…”
Carmelita headed out into the darkness, her head whirling. There was still a fog over her time in Dante’s Abyss, though it was clearing, and with the corruption of a lot of her eyepieces audio and visual files she could only hope it would reveal what had happened.
In the cold night, she began summoning the solar panels, each one resting neatly by a pair of holes. The work wasn’t strenuous, but focusing on the feeling of omnilium coursing through her took her mind off her past and her recent troubles and condensed it into her current tasks.
The sun peeked over the dunes as she reached the halfway mark and Chip appeared from the direction of the control tower. Wordlessly, the tri-eye joined in, beginning to wire up and fasten the solar panels in place before filling the holes in around the connections. Once Carmelita had finished, she took over the shoveling and Chip made good work of the remaining panels.
Chip headed inside to fix up the electrics and Carmelita finished shoveling dirt. Once she was done she stood back and surveyed the result of their exertions. A field of identical solar panels shone in the light, angled directly upwards. A moment later, a whine could be heard and the entire field began tilting as one to catch the sun’s rays full on. She headed back to fetch breakfast.
The two of them ate in the control tower, discussing with Al3x what Carmelita had internally labelled ‘New Interpol’. In the end, they came to calling it Suprapol, a shortening of Supranational Police And Response Team Agency that didn’t sound quite so martial as SPARTA.
After they’d eaten, they headed out to deal with the automatic defences. Al3x had deactivated the towers, warning them that if the base was attacked they’d have to get out of the way before he reactivated them.
The two of them walked to the northern corner and stared up at the autoturret that stretched up on a solid metal pylon. The large sphere that was perched on the top was dark, the red lines that ran around the outside dull and lacking energy. Carmelita forced the door on the pylon and the two of them ascended the ladder inside, Chip checking the wiring every so often.
They reached the top to see a cramped set of computers, cooling apparatus, targeting equipment and laser capacitors. Chip instantly set about checking over everything, asking for the occasional tool to fix it. Carmelita wiped her brow as the sphere began to roast, heated by the sun outside. After reconnecting Al3x to the control system by rerouting the wiring, the two of them descended the pylon and shut it before the tower powered up. They could feel the thrum of energy as the tower lit up, bright red lines mixing with bright green lines in a dazzling dispay. The tower shot out beams of red and green, kicking up sand and dirt from where they hit. Carmelita gritted her teeth to bear the brunt of a stun hit, and ended up waking up in the control tower that afternoon to applause from Chip and Al3x. Apparently while she had been out of it, Chip had fixed up the remaining three towers, and the automatic defences were now being guided and updated by Al3x.
With that, Chip and Carmelita rolled up their metaphorical sleeves and got down to the horrible business of dealing with the plumbing.