warning! warning!

[thespaceopera]

[The nebulas are beautiful in this region of space, at the very least. They gleam as great distorting clouds of space-stuff that your scanners don't even want to attempt to analyze. They affect the ships' instruments much like other areas of disruption have in the past, but these are actually visible as large swathes of light--like giant flames frozen in their swirling shapes, suspended across impressive stretches of space. For once, there's something like scenery to look at, out here in the black...

And then, the proximity alarms begin to blare.

From a gap between the two nearest clouds comes an assemblage of ships! Familiar to some and new to others--they do not respond to hails or communications of any kind, and they're gunning straight for the Fleet without slowing. Their weapons are locking on and firing as soon as they are in range.

Many passengers have been through this before, and many of the ships are bigger and better than they'd been in the previous skirmish. Today, the Drift Fleet will put up a better fight, even punch a few holes in their attackers.

Your augment knows where you need to go! Do you run to your station? Do you dodge your job? Are you unsure how to help? Are the captains giving orders or panicking, and are their crews paying attention? Everyone's got a chance to fight back before the enemy fleet runs them into the nearest nebula--and things suddenly take a bad turn.

As soon as each Drift Fleet ship hits the nebula, its systems overload and short-circuit before going dead. It stays silent for minutes, no radar, no comms, no network. Stubborn stragglers are ganged up on and forced into the cloud, followed by the poor ships on autopilot being bodily hauled into the nebula with tractor beams. Once the entire Fleet has been set adrift as sitting ducks, before the Marsiva can get too close, the attacking fleet... turns and flees through the cloud, seemingly untouched by the nebula that scrambles your ships.

Eventually, the systems flicker back to life, blinking on one by one. It will be several hours before any other effects of the attack will be noticeable. The network shows up as live again, but Atroma never shows up to explain a thing...]


ooc: the out-of-character event post is over here! respond to this post any way you like; you can have action, comm messages, play during the attack, being stuck in the nebula, checking in after the network comes back online, or whatever else seems fitting.

Comments

[unbearablynaive]

[The Vision manages to brace himself well enough, and there's only one small crash from his end of the comms. And then there's a surge from Wrath using the weapons in retaliation, and he's busy enough that he doesn't say anything until they get caught in the tractor beam.]

I take it that's not my imagination?

[tothefly]

[As the ships open fire and Wrath returns the volleys, Natasha makes her way down to weapons. They do what they can, defend themselves well enough until the last of the weapons batteries are knocked offline. After that, they're easy prey for the enemy, and Natasha's voice as she replies is both irritated and tired.]

Not unless we're having new and exciting group hallucinations. They have some kind of lock on us.

[unbearablynaive]

[He knows a few things about group hallucinations - namely, that they wouldn't actually affect him.]

Understood. I'll give the shields everything we have to spare.

[tothefly]

[She doesn't think it'll help, but it can't hurt. The Windrose shudders as it's dragged forcibly into the nebula, and all but groans as all nonessential systems just...shut down.]

Vision? Can you hear me? What's going on down there?

[Do the comms even work right now? Maybe not. He might be able to hear her shouting regardless, though.]

[unbearablynaive]

[The comms are indeed being unreliable, but he has no difficulty hearing her. Oddly enough, his voice comes to her in a normal speaking tone even though he's rather far away.]

Yes, I hear you. We appear to have a temporary blackout. I have light [since his forehead kinda glows] but if you do not, I can place some of my fish in a portable container.

[See? See? He knew having glowing fish would come in handy!]

[tothefly]

[The voice thing is weird. She blinks at the sound of it, the closest she gets to nervous twitching, before continuing to slowly move, finding her way by touch more than sight.]

Any light you can get us would be good. I'm making my way from the battery to engineering now.

[Glowing fish. Who knew they'd be such a valuable resource? She shakes her head, making her cautious way out the door.]

[unbearablynaive]

[Down in Engineering, he has two of the fish in little globes - the red one, which spreads light through the whole compartment, and the blue one which they're using more as a flashlight in specific areas.]

There. It seems to be either a surge of some type, or discharge directly from the nebula particles--ah, hello, Captain.