[center][h1][color=00aeef]Ren[/color][/h1][/center]
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[center]No longer comfortable.[/center]
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Renli and Rento were both idling obediently in the gunnery seats, waiting for the mission to arrive, when a spurt of gunfire from the deck immediately beneath the Tower caught its attention. The sound, though dampened by the flooring and machinery between the source and the Tower, immediately pulled its attention away from the two bodies. Rento went motionless as control left her body, and the Tower found itself excited, nervous, and very defensive. The ship's crew was rather violent, then, despite the relatively friendly view it had gotten from Stryker, Grayson, and SAL.

The six round doors around the base of the Tower opened and a bundle of ten cables per hole erupted in all directions within the storage room. The tips of the cables began their work, melting their way into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling in search of systems to hijack. The Tower saw through the tip of one cable the rough shape of the ship's interior, and remembering the rough floor layout of the ship, it quickly wormed its way around bundles of ship wiring, conduits, and insulation to the doors that sealed the bottom deck off from the rest of the ship. The jaws at the tip of the cable clamped onto the wire between the control systems and the door's motors, then neatly sliced it in half, giving complete control of the door to the Tower.

The other cables, meanwhile, continued worming their way throughout the ship slowly, searching for systems that would provide the Tower a survival advantage against the rest of the crew if so required. The door to the storage room the Tower inhabited fell almost immediately. The infecting cables no longer needed direct supervision to do their job and the Tower fell idle once again.

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Renli snapped to attention, no longer running on an AI routine. It had been some time since the body had been actively used, but it felt good to be in his own head again. The good feelings passed quickly, though, when he remembered what he was doing. Neither he nor Rento had heard the gunfire through the ship, indicating that organic human ears may have also missed it. He stood and left his post to find Stryker or Grayson.

"Just heard gunfire on the bottom deck. Thought you might want to know -- didn't see a firing range down there at all."

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[@Crossfire]
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