Joining the Rebellion

[Keshani]

[Clarification - you had said there might be a way to rig up a droid to escort her back outside of this building....couldn't that same principle be used here within the building? Also, what was the power core providing for the droids that a local power supply could not provide? Just need clarification]

[GM Craig]

With the exception of the leadership models, the standard droids have no capability for independent action. They are entirely reliant on a control node for even basic movement. With power down, the control node is down, so the droids are inactive. You could get a verbobrain and program it before attaching it to a basic combat model. Or you could rig up a mini-control node. A full control node would be a bigger project, but you might be able to rig a basic "drone mode" controller and manually control a droid to do the work.

Another option is to rig / find / create some sort of shielding to protect you from the radiation, and do the work yourself.

[Keshani]

Which one would be easier to find - verbobrain or mini-control node? Would she need to use her armor to control either/both of these or can she find another power supply? And which one, in her her tech knowledge, would be more likely to accomplish her goal?

And, btw, does she still have sensors on her datapad available to know where those leadership model ones are?

[GM Craig]

No sensors, everything is shut down.

You can find supplies of advanced verbobrains in the factory. Reprogramming one would take time, but the droids are modular so fitting it will be simple. And it will be hard to program what you need the droid to do until you know what the damage is.

Doing a direct-control rig would take less time and be a little less challenging. But your technical skills would be filtered through the command interface, which may make things awkward.

There are industrial safety shields you could rig for personal protection and do the work yourself. But if it fails, you'll be in a bad way. Probably safest to use a droid of some sort to do the work. Then, if you make a non-explody mistake, you can try again.

[Keshani]

direct-control rig. Let's go with that.

[GM Craig]

It takes a couple of hours, working in the dark. The factory is pretty eerie with silence everywhere and all the lights off, but the occasional clank faraway of some rogue droid going haywire. Eventually, you manage to cobble together parts and programming for a crude droid control rig. [Aside: the droid control would be a lot easier with an implant.] It's pretty crude, but you think you should be able to drive the droid well enough to at least shut down the leaky power core and assess the damage.

You've got a fairly limited range - no more than 50m or so, so you're not exactly out of the danger zone. But by positioning yourself well, you should be safe from exposure.

[Your repair skills will be capped at 3D+1 for this exercise, but you can take your time and get a bonus +2D]

[OOC: Anything else, or you just sending in the droid?]

[Keshani]

Send the droid in.

(Did I ever mention that Kesh hates droids? :-p)

[GM Craig]

The droid trundles off. It's a little disorienting looking at the visual input through your computer, but you adjust. You drive the droid to the access hatch, and open it up. Independently powered alarms start going off in the corridor as radiation from the damaged power core floods the corridor. You direct the droid to open the door fully and step inside.

You can see the cracked containment shield from the entry way. This looks like a partial breech, with some collateral damage to the inside of the power core chamber. The chamber is glowing yellow, mostly from the floor at the breech. Fortunately the control panel looks to be intact. You gently get the droid to wipe off some of the debris, some of which ends up sticking to the hand of the droid. You run through the power sequence, and nothing happens. You try it again, a little slower, and still get nothing. Third time is the charm though, and you manage to get the power-down sequence to activate. In a few moments, the console goes dead.

That will stop the lead from getting any worse, but there is still a lot of radioactive debris all over the chamber. Maybe just sealing it up from here would be good enough? Patching the breech would take some work, and with now new leaking from the damaged power core, the radiation levels should fall quickly.

[OOC: Up to you. A thorough job and patch / clean up the leak, or close the door and leave it to decay naturally.]

[Keshani]

Her lips twitched up into the beginnings of a smile as the power-down sequence activated.

It wouldn't be a permanent solution to the issue, but she hadn't detected any radioactive material in the village when she had used her sensor pack so that SHOULD mean the water supply would be safe for now if she just sealed up the chamber and called it a day.

Part of her felt like this was going way too easy and was waiting for something to go wrong, but she tried to push that thought away just as soon as it surfaced.

She thought for a minute about actually working with the droid to patch the breach, but working with the droid like this was clunky, and she had already been gone from base for so long....

She promised herself that once she got back she would talk with the people there and see what they thought. Maybe she could get better gear and come back and repair the breach? With more help so she was sure it was done right?

Her thoughts flashed back to the natives of the village and how sick they had become.

Yes, she promised herself. She would do everything she could to come back to fix it later.

But for now her first priority at this point was getting back. So they at least knew she was alive. And so at least she wasn't by herself anymore...

Which was a rather ironic thought since she had spent so much of her life ENJOYING being by herself...., or so she had thought.

She let out a sigh. The droid would have to stay in the chamber when she sealed it. He had radioactive debris on him so letting him out would not be safe.

She winced for a second. Him. It. she correct herself. It was a droid. It was an it, not a him.

She had the droid use the controls to close the door and then looked around to see if she could rig up another verbobrain to get another droid or so running to be an escort for her. There were still rogue droids out there and she preferred to not have to fight them herself if she could help it...

<Actions: Close door>

[GM Craig]

It'll take a bit to rig up something autonomous. But you can "drive" one along with you if you want.

[Keshani]

Can I send it ahead of me a ways to make sure there's no friendlies?

[GM Craig]

Sure, it just takes focus to drive it.

[Keshani]

Ok. I wanna do that

[GM Craig]

You manage to avoid another rogue droid while you rig up a second "drone" to come with you. Using the drone to scout, you make your way back up. It's a bit of a process - with no lifts, it's a manual, exhausting climb up to the level of the loading bay. But eventually, legs and arms shaky, you make it. The doors are sealed, and there's no power, but there is a small access hatch that should lead to the surface. You have everything you need here to rig a grav sled as a makeshift swoop bike, but without power you'll have a hard time getting the large overhead doors open. There is a manual access hatch (another long ladder, ugh!) so you might be able to open the doors manually, but you can't imagine the manual system will be much help - those doors in the ceiling look very heavy. It's either going to take hours, or more strength that you have to work the cranks. Another option is you could possibly rig a direct power feed to a door motor, if you can find a power source strong enough to drive the motivators.

There is also your helmet, which is still with the tribe. If you were to get that back, you could use the comlink to call for help. Maybe heading back there first is an option? But that's a risk - the primitives may not let you go easily.

So, a few hours of cranking, or carrying (or getting your droid drone to carry) parts up the ladder and build a smaller version of a swoop outside, or rig a power supply for direct feed, if you can find the parts.

Getting the droid to carry stuff would certainly save you some physical labour, and give you time to rest as well, so maybe that's the best option.

[Actions?]

[Keshani]

She made a face, thinking to herself only half jokingly that this would be way easier if she could just rig an explosive to blow the door up. But that would leave the whole warehouse here exposed to whatever wanted to come in, which may not exactly be a good idea.

So carrying supplies up the ladder it was. Or, rather, having the droid carry the supplies up. Maybe droids weren't so bad afterall....

She went over to start gathering supplies and to get the droid going helping her to lift them up the ladder.