[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/kXCnlSJ.png[/img][/center] [center][h2][color=c4df9b]Finbarr[/color], [color=#E39FF6]Millard[/color], and [color=#b9dde9]Laurey[/color][/h2][/center] The second Decoy team was being led to a tour of the cells, through the engine room by the Chief Engineer of the Prison Ship, one Jan Makarov. Jan was a young-looking, reasonably-skinny, enthusiastic ball of energy who said, "I can't believe the Star Marines are real and you fight alongside them! You three do so, right, right?” [color=c4df9b]"That's absolutely correct, Mr… Uh… What was it again?... Ah, Makarov."[/color] Finbarr looked around the room with his cerulean eyes, taking in all the details of the engine. [color=c4df9b]"Star Marines are indeed a thing of truth. They're really good at what they do."[/color] Finbarr chuckled internally, as the man had no idea he was talking to one of the famed marines of the stars… children whose dreams were taken for the sake of war. [color=c4df9b][i]I know that because I'm one of them…[/i][/color], he thought. “Wow,” he said, before remembering himself, “Anyway, this ship has a Spacewarping Engine installed, and it's pretty intact, too! This means it can be repurposed for another ship, as Spacewarpers are precious nowadays." Casting her eyes over the room, Laurey thought everything was pretty much intact, definitely salvageable. It also filled her with a sense of dread; if the AI was free, what could it do with all this resource? Even though they were on its side, AI were notorious; human lives were a vanishingly small factor in the calculations of those machine minds. “Indeed they are, sir,” her jaw was a twitching, clenched thing, “I’d love to stay and work on it, but our duty here is pressing.” Millard had taken a hardened persona, he had no real emotion on his face. He had a grizzled face with his stubble there to sell his look, with a slight shift in his neck as he walked he leaned slightly forward and made his presence seem almost ever looming. His eye scanned the room as when the head engineer talked, Millard looked the man in the eyes, as if his eyes were piercing through him, as he spoke he made sure everyone knew what he was here to do. Millard took up the role with ease, after all, this was his job a while back. As he had started to take a bit more of a leading role, keeping the engineer on track with a quick and sudden, [color=#E39FF6]”Oi, Kid”[/color]. As his eyes would meet Millard’s stern and cold eyes as he continues, [color=#E39FF6]”Cut the chatter. We need to make sure that AI isn’t loose. If it is, we will be in some deep shit.”[/color] As he casted his gaze to Laurey as he then continues, [color=#E39FF6]”Like lieutenant Hawthorn said our duty is much more important. If that AI gets out, they could cause great harm with just that Spacewarper alone.”[/color] As Millard tosses a finger as he gestures to some of the control panels as he then continues, [color=#E39FF6]”Lieutenant make those skills useful and check to see if anything is being tampered with”[/color]. Millard had no clue if Laurey had any skills in this regard, however to fake skills is very easy, as long as he keeps the Head Engineer distracted. Honestly, it was easy, as he quickly took his arm and threw it over the shoulder of the boy as he says, [color=#E39FF6]”Kid I need you to be very clear with me. Have you seen anything strange as of recent? This could be imperative, as if the AI got control of this ship, this could be a planet buster we are sitting in”[/color]. The Chief Engineer says, “Nothing much, except for some rumblings in the solitary cells. That said, we do try and make sure that Realist is isolated from any electronic systems outside its chamber [i]plus[/i] we make sure that the Spacewarper’s controls can only be used by a human. And that means me!” A pause, “Well, me and anyone authorized by the Warden - Both of us have a set of exclusive passwords keyed to our DNA!” Laurey had fallen away with a salute as soon as Millard gave the order. She’d been itching to peer under the skin of this beast. Just itching in general. The consoles rattled off a stream of data at her touch, telling a story she already knew. Things were mostly fine. She wiped the cold sweat from her cheeks and eyes. After opening a maintenance panel, her finger blossomed and entered the computer system’s stream of information. The world restarted, changed. The firewalls were distortions in her abstraction, as they always were, but the sheer number of them was a heady sight. She felt no AI presence. Of course, that didn’t mean much, but she felt somewhat comforted. She shut down the terminal. Withdrawing her hand, and her mind with it, she saw it was shaking worse than before. She’d blamed it on the space travel when the young engineer had asked. Something about sealegs. The others were out of sight now. She peered further into the maintenance port and yanked on a motherboard, fettered by wire. That was fine, it was loose enough now that she could reach the chip she’d been hoping would be there. It disappeared into her breast pocket. “Everything seems fine,” she reported, after jogging to catch up with the others. [color=c4df9b]"So no evil AI trying to kill everyone in here then."[/color], Finbarr chuckled, tapping unto Makarov's shoulder. [color=c4df9b]"Is there anything else you want to show us?"[/color] These hands are getting itchy… “I wanted to move us to the cells, actually,” Jan said. “There are some prisoners of importance the Warden wants you guys to look at with a view to remanding.” "[color=c4df9b]"Oooohhh, prisoners?"[/color], Finbarr said, rubbing his hands together in pretenseful glee. [color=c4df9b]"What are they on about?" [/color] Jan’s response was, “A few people [i]claiming[/i] to be Star Marines, but who’ve committed treasonous actions of some sort, going by how the people who captured them say. They have the powers to match, too. We’ll leave their judgement up to you, by the way.” Millard had a feeling that there would be prisoners still here, yet for there to be Star Marines, that is a strange idea. However whatever is the case, they needed to investigate either way, if not to find allies then to at least keep up appearances. However, the good news comes from the fact that the AI isn’t running amok, sure it was going to be on their side, however, it doesn't know that right away, and Millard didn’t want to go and fight it. However, this Jan kid is following smoothly, so Millard has little worries on what will happen. [color=c4df9b]"Do you want to see, take a look?"[/color], Finbarr asked Millard. The plan was to get the AI out while the decoy teams were keeping everyone else distracted, but the addition of more Star Marines to their company would strengthen their numbers. Especially if these were just as treasonous as Jan claimed… Millard looked towards Finbarr as he says taking in a breath, [color=#E39FF6]”It seems we have more kids to babysit”[/color]. Millard says this with a bit of a tirade expression, looking as if he was going to be doing something exhausting. Yet he was interested in the idea of more people to add, they could be useful in the end, and besides, he’s not letting these kids rot here. Yet he still kept up his act, he needed to keep up his part. As he allows Jan to take lead to show them where the cell’s are. The engine room doors opened, and the group was led to a bunch of winding corridors which led to the cells, a bunch of corridors which was deliberately claustrophobic. “Never gets easier,” Jan said as he shuddered. Finbarr walked on ahead, looking towards the insides of the cells. It was true; there were kids in here, and if Jan was to be believed, they were just like his good self. [color=c4df9b]"Are the surveillance cameras in here working? Would be terrible if they're broken by the crash and these Marines somehow escape."[/color] Jan considered the question before responding, “They are - We jury-rigged the remaining cameras here to one of the secondary communications rooms. We are watching over the prisoners and Realist right now.” "Hmmm." Finbarr wondered if Laurey could do something about the thing with the cameras, but they can't afford to be seen doing anything fishy, especially since the cameras here are still active. "Well, I suppose that we should deal with them appropriately. Don't you agree, friends?" If they could get those marines out of sight, perhaps he could portal them into the ship. That is, as long as they also get Realist with them. That machine mind had always been their objective.