Day 2 | Afternoon | Eye For An Eye

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Upon their return to the camp, Ambrose made his way to the thopter with his salvaged Tleilaxu eye. With any luck, there would be a projector onboard he could use to view the footage and get some actionable intel. But when had luck ever been on Ambrose's side. The thopter offered no such abilities, so all was for naught.

He'd fried his shield getting this damned thing out of the tree with nothing to show for it. Speaking of, Ambrose stashed away the eye for now and cleared a space to examine his personal shield.

[Kannon]

[Easy Mechanics w/ Challenge, because he can always make it worse.]

[Ambrose Pantazis]

When he opened his kit to pull out the multi-tool, Mr. Bravo decided to take the opportunity to examine the contents of his recently acquired roost.

With the nosy bird out of the way, Ambrose was able to dismantle his shield in peace and inspect the inner workings. His understanding of the Holtzman Field was very limited, but he'd been trained to field strip and maintain his equipment to a limited reasonable extent. That and he didn't have an armorer to answer to after the mission.

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D2, Afternoon, EfaE, Mechanics on Shield: 2eP+1eA+1eC 4 successes, 1 advantage

[Kannon]

The burnt parts were easily replaced, the generator itself was intact. The problem was how to recharge it. Holtzmann effect required huge power input to kickstart.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

After replacing the shorted parts, Ambrose fitted his shield and tried to activate it. His ambitions weren't even rewarded with the hum of an attempt to initiate. Double checking over his work and the components he was confident in his findings. The shield itself was perfectly fine and repaired, it just held no power.

The tragic story of their mission so far. But for a bit of power, they'd have the use of aerial assets to search for the young Paul Atreides and his swordmaster mentor, they'd have the advantage of air superiority to search for and subdue the cartel, and he'd have his personal shield back for his own peace of mind. They'd also have the means to remove that irredeemable woman from their camp.

Though, if he was honest with himself, he was starting to feel a little bad for his words. After the talking down he'd gotten from Bernard and the rest of the walk to cool his head, he could see he'd acted brashly. Ambrose couldn't imagine reacting much better than her after getting his arm nearly blown off. Not that he'd cleared her in his book. If not directly complicit, her inaction had certainly led to more deaths that could've been prevented.

That was likely why he'd been so aggressive. With the visage of those dead Muadh in the cave and of his brother on his mind, his adrenaline had been through the roof. He was almost two months sober and that kind of a shock to the system was as potent as a hit of elacca.

Then there was the shock from the tree. That'd probably done a number on his body... A lot of power came out of that tree. It'd been enough to fry the shield, surely it'd be enough to jumpstart it. But how could he tap into it? Ambrose didn't fancy putting on his inactive shield and yanking another Tleilaxu eye out of a tree in hopes the electricity channeled to the generator and triggered the Holtzman Effect.

[Kannon]

[Average Education w/ Setback for disquiet mind]

[Ambrose Pantazis]

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D2, Afternoon, EfaE, Education w/ setback: 1eP+2eA+2eD+1eS 1 success

[Kannon]

He only ever heard of Tleilaxu eyes in the context of people. They were bionic-cybernetic devices, usually available at a steep price and with unknown hooks attached since they were, well, Tleilaxu. One massive deployment of such devices occurred during the nuking of the artifical moon Korona over Richese during the so-called Great Spice War, many Richesians who got blind in the aftermath were offered such a replacement.

This one, if it was truly a Tleilaxu product, must have been heavily modified for such a different purpose as being planted into an electrical tree. But the nature of those modifications could only be potentially discerned upon more careful inspection of the gauged device.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

That's right, that accursed eye was... implanted into the tree. They must've shielded it somehow. In fact, from what little he could remember of the discharge, it had traveled along those nerve like things attached to the eye.

He reached into his kit to retrieve the eye when Mr. Bravo pecked at him. Pulling his hand back, he lifted the flap and looked inside. "Nasty bird, get out of that." Mr. Bravo had decided said stringy nerve connections would make good nesting material. After a bit of ruffled feathers, Ambrose successfully dislodged the indignant bird and, for the second time today, extracted the eye under threat of mortal danger.

[Kannon]

There seemed to be no danger this time as the eye was inert after the extraction, but the reason of Mr. Bravo's interest soon became apparent. The nerve-like tendrils dangling from it looked in part... organic. There also seemed to be a nigh-seamless lid on the invisible side of the oculus.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

"Just like squiggly little worms huh buddy?" Ambrose asked Mr. Bravo.

He spread the eye and its accompaniments out on the surface he'd claimed for his workspace while trying to figure out how to delicately open the obscured lid. It was thanks to his training and combat experience as a medic that he wasn't physically sickened by the sight of it. However, the thought of what the Bene Tleilax were doing with this little gadget was an entirely different matter. He'd been raised as a God fearing boy and although he'd certainly drifted far from many of the strictures, there were some so ingrained from the OCB that even a lost soul such as his wouldn't dare to forget or challenge them. Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. Fair, this was not a human mind, but it was very much adjacent to it and not just by vicinity.

All this was far above Ambrose's pay grade, and far from his most pressing concern at the moment. He worked to cautiously pry open the eye and learn how the cartel had insulated it or tempered the effect of the trees' discharge.

[Kannon]

Butlerian precepts encoded in religion were one thing, but the Tleilaxu were distrusted and reviled for many other reasons. Duke Leto had a special hatred for them, also for what they had done to Ix and House Vernius.

[Average Mechanics or Hard Medicine, either w/ Challenge. Check what statements apply.]

[Ambrose Pantazis]

As he poked and prodded at the 'eye', Ambrose did his best to think of it in terms of mechanical components working in conjunction to perform a task rather than as the biological system it resembled. No, even the concept of a machine replacing such an intricate and complex organ was blasphemous, but to view it from with a medical eye felt as though to wade in and accept this abomination. To become an active participant in their heresy.

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Statements: "Keep calm and trust your training." (Contradictory)
Mechanics rolls
D2, Afternoon, EfaE,: 1eP+2eA+2eC 0 successes, 1 advantage

[Kannon]

He used surgical tools to make the lid pop off. What he saw inside filled him with too much revulsion to proceed. Ths eye did not resemble a a human eye on the inside. It was a densely packed compartment of tangled spools of wires conjoined with beating flesh, now nearing atrophy because of separation from the power source. In the flesh, veins were filled not with blood, but with bluish substance that was probably drawn from the tree as the on the inside the 'worms' looked more like capillaries than traditional nerves. An electrofluid? There was shigawire embedded too, connected to the visual receptor, which looked crude and unsophisticated compared to thd intricacy of the gory rest. But even discerning this much made him feel like vomiting.

[Bernard Martikova]

After several awkward meetings with a cute, but (justifiably) neurotic Imperial scientist, Bernard got tired of waiting for his brother to show back up. Either the Mudah outreach was successful and he was learning their ways with the assistance of a attractive woman or he was dead in a ditch somewhere. Trying to remain optimistic, he chose a happy medium somewhere in between. He did mention his attraction to Laila, after all, so who knows what he was up to with the natives.

Ignoring his brother's sexual and romantic proclivities or, he couldn't wait any longer than he had for him to arrive. The Cartel would likely soon finish organizing a offensive against them soon and if they couldn't get that thopter in the air by tonite, they'd have to abandoned it. That meant their hope to evacuate Leto's boy and Duncan Idaho would require outside assistance and precious hours they'd likely not have with the enemy. With everything that's gone wrong on this mission so far, and his inability to express his proper concern for that redhead due to orders, the best solution was to grab whomever was standing around at the time and give the salvage operation a proper try. Waiting for a ideal situation where they could do this was likely never going to happen, and sitting around hoping it comes would only ensure they'd be wasting time.

So, he looked over at who he had for this quick expedition to where he first arrived and quickly assessed his potential resources and stifled a sigh.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Fighting back his revulsion, Ambrose took a step back and drew a sip from his canteen. It helped that the interior wasn't completely analogous to the human eye, but it was close.

Putting aside the wrongness of it all, there was an interesting interaction going on there. It was as though that glowing blue fluid was piped directly in and consumed. Like some kind of biofuel for the device. He couldn't just slather his personal shield in blue goo and have it start up, but perhaps there was a way to harvest an amount and rig up some kind of electrochemical battery. Although harvesting the stuff was likely only slightly less hazardous than trying to use it directly. The end result should be safer on his equipment.

[Kannon]

There were hypotheses to be checked. What he at least knew was that the eye constituted a successful, if outrageous, interface between the tree's electrofluid and the device's conventionally powered visual detector through some bionic transistors.

However, Sargeant Martikova's activities called for Ambrose's attention now.

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Seeing nothing more he could do for the time, Ambrose decided to take a break and get some fresh air outside the thopter and away from all this. Not daring to leave Mr. Bravo to his own devices with the innards of the eye laid bare, he called on the bird and stepped down the ramp.

The sight that welcomed him was not an entirely welcomed one. He saw Bernard looking around the camp. Likely for Ambrose so he could dress him down over his aggressive treatment of the prisoner. He waved to Bernard, having enough shame to look at least somewhat contrite. Ambrose knew he had done poorly in comporting himself like a proper soldier of Atreides, but it felt like another lifetime ago when he'd born that honorable status, despite his abrupt reactivation.

[Bernard Martikova]

He nodded towards Ambrose and walked over to him before approaching him, expecting a salute before stopping. "Hopefully you got whatever you were dealing with in check. We're on a ticking clock at this point; can't wait for my brother or any other tech guy. Grab your gear and whoever you can find. The captain will be going with you to the other crash site while we still have light."

[Ambrose Pantazis]

Ambrose followed protocol and saluted his superior officer. "Of course sir. I will endeavor to be more civil to unidentified targets I've provided medical care to in hostile territory after wading through bodies and being electrocuted twice in less than twelve hours." he responded while standing at attention as was proper.

Although he would listen and obey, that didn't mean he would surrender his mind. They weren't Harkonnens, he wouldn't be lashed or sent to a slave pit for wrongthink.

With all the snap and military bearing he could muster, he turned on his heels to reenter the thopter and collect the eye and his other gear. It was quick work and he was back at the bottom of the ramp back at attention waiting to be dismissed.