Once More, with Feeling...

[thespaceopera]

[It comes at some point in the mid-afternoon, not that space is anything but timeless. The Fleet holds its collective breath as a lone figure works tireless at the controls, surrounded by as much machinery as could be feasibly cobbled together in the span of a few short weeks… But Zhade is here and working hard, and at last he finds an opening.

Communicators and consoles light up everywhere, broadcasting his voice and half-shrouded face in a broad echo. There's nothing to lose, and no reason to hide themselves any longer.]

This is Zhade! Prepare yourselves-- the shields are about to come down! You'll need to hit it with everything you have. Spells, cannons, everything, all of it. Don't you dare hold back, not after the heroics you've shown us time and time again!

[He wipes some sweat from his scarred brow and hits a button, broadcasting instead an image of the Marsiva. The space around it crackles and sparks visibly, lightning rippling over the barrier in a honeycomb fashion. This is the same view as from any of the Fleet's windows. The audio picks up the sound of things sparking and crackling around Zhade, but this doesn't slow him at all.

Instead, he roars a simple command:]

FIRE—!

[The shields are down, and all is laid bare.

What happens next is up to the combined strength of the Fleet, whether they are firing upon the ship to maintain a distraction or boarding the ship themselves.]



[ooc: Please see the latest drift post for information on toplevels, threading, etc. and what to expect.]

Comments

[tempredmental]

[It was a risk leaving the Huntress on auto-pilot right now, but without shields and weapons thanks to crew losses, she wasn't going to be able to offer much in the way of a fight. So, Keith had decided infiltrating the Marsiva was where he could offer the most support. He ended up on the Doc's team, racing through corridors, taking out bots, and it felt an awful lot like a mission back home. The Galra used a lot of sentry robots, so slashing through them with his blades was nothing new. Even at a distance, Keith had deadly aim when it came to throwing one of his swords (oddly a lot better than his aim when shooting a gun), and he made quite path for others to follow.

As they reached the room, he picked up on the energy right away.]

It's... like a singing planet...?

[At the back of his mind, amidst the hope and singing from the core they now faced, something nagged about those dreams and past messages he'd heard and been exposed to... sisters, help them, save them...]

Wait- is this a- ah!

[As the room shuddered and sprayed sparks, the cry of pain from the core hit him harder than he expected. Maybe because they were so close to it, he wasn't sure, but it was almost like when the Lions took a bad hit... it hurt.

He looked at Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.]

How do we help it?

[queenmonarch]

It's... yeah, I think it is just like-- Shit!

[ She's mostly steady on her feet when the room starts to rock, but even she grimaces when the core cries out. ]

I don't-- I'm not sure. I don't know what's happening. [ She rushes over to the console most directly attached to the glass enclosure. ] I'm gonna see if this one is more useful than the others. Can you, I don't know, talk to it?

[ 'Cause she's like 99.9999% sure someone else is going to be WAY better suited to talking to a sentient core light planet magic whatever thing than, you know, the supervillain who would prefer not to be nice to things. ]

[tempredmental]

[Did she just... ask him to... talk... to... it...?]

uhhh... maybe?

[He wasn't sure. Granted... he could hear it? So, maybe it would be like communicating with his Lion? He hesitantly approached the glass and cautiously reached out to touch it.]

Can you hear me?

[queenmonarch]

[ It can hear him! Unfortunately, it can't completely understand. And it also can't completely respond in a way that's totally comprehensible, but it does try.

The response in his mind is as musical as the singing planets have always been, but it's frantic and hurt. Pain. Help! Those are the only understandable words it can project. So it resorts to images: a swirling blob made of shimmers of darkness and color, a crackling bolt of lightning, the snapping of a wire -- and then more specifically, a large cable channeling some sort of electrical signal alongside a pulsing green light.

And if Keith happens to look over to where Monarch is hammering away at the computer, there's a similar cable attached - though it looks like it isn't currently channeling anything. ]

[tempredmental]

[Oh... okay. That was kind of painful.

But that blob... it looked familiar. Keith recognized it from the dream Castiel had shown him.

Wires.

Keith opened his eyes, spotting the cable in question.]

That cable? Do we have to break it?

[He could try to cut it with his blade...]

[queenmonarch]

Cable?

[ Monarch follows Keith's gaze to the cable coming from her terminal. She thinks it over for a second... then nods, pulls a gun out of the holster on her hip, and blasts it with a photon beam. It cracks open under the pressure - there's a hissing sound, a few more electrical crackles, and then all power immediately surrounding the glass enclosure shuts down.

And with no more pain, the core releases a wave of pure and heavy relief - Hope! Thanks!

But the live wires around the perimeter of the room crackle a little more intensely. It will be more dangerous to access any other terminals now, but at least the light seems to be safe. ]

[tempredmental]

[Keith looked relieved for a moment, too, the core's own relief influencing what he was feeling for just the moment, but he came back to reality pretty quick as he stared at those other wires.

He frowned and quickly went looking for something that wouldn't conduct electricity so he could help with pushing them out of the way.]