You awake in perfect darkness, perfect silence. Sound and Light cannot exist in this place as they require motion. You are cold, down into your bones where the ice grip the very core of you.
Stasis. Absolute Zero.
A horrible awareness that the waking mind is not meant to experience this awful, total, stillness.
Something is wrong. Something has gone wrong with your Cold-Sleep and you are... aware.
Then noise. The gentle hum of machinery, dim in the background. The gentle lightening from perfect, terrible darkness to a more normal absence of light.
Then the sudden slice of brilliance, the lid of your Cold-Sleep tube cracks open letting in a nova of photons as your body relaxes suddenly from its stasis imposed rigidity, you blink for the first time in days, months...years? You breath.
The air is hot. Too hot, and stale. The light that seemed so perfectly bright a second ago now seems weak. The lid finishes open and you don't see the expected nurses and technicians looking down on you, the ship's crew waking you from your slumber. You only see the feeble light of a battery fed emergency light, feel the hot stale air that isn't circulating properly... life support failure. Power failure. Emergency.
But no one is running, no shouting... the ship seems almost as silent as that perfect, awful moment of Stasis. There is only you. You and three strangers, each climbing out of their own Stasis Pod.
I grab my head and moan a bit, and then take a good look at my fellows of whatever fortune this is. I hop a bit, testing the gravity, shaking out my arms and legs getting ready for whatever crisis this seems to be.
Need friends, fast. I look meaningfully to my 'allies of convenience', trying to catch sight of eye recognition from anyone. That is when I will slap my chest, saying my name clearly, "Fimion. Fimion Jalunda."
Then I will try to figure out our common language: "Who of you understands what I am saying now?"
The man in the robes climbes out of his oversised coffin. And gives a couple deep booming rattling coughs. Looking at his cell mates he quickly runs his hands down his robes, flowing Ivory over a close fitting black jump suit.
He finds what he was looking for and pops a pill into his mouth. He gives the hooked knife a practiced twirl before sliding it back into its wrist sheath.
"I hate going under the ice, leaves a horrible taste in my mouth. My batman told me he packed for every occasion and yet here I am under dressed."
You Find that you can understand one another though the words you hear are foreign to your ears. It seems linked to your headache in some way."]
"Good. I understand you." Looks at the talking one, "I am Fimion. What is your name?" and walks toward, offering a hand to shake in greeting.
[regardless what happens]
"This does not look right. We might have to work together to get systems up and figure where we are."
Looking at the others, "Whenever you are ready let me know if you can understand me."
"Delm Alijandro Fernando yos'Permia." Shaking your hand. "You look like you've been the Ice for a good long while.
Sweet Void!
How long have I been in the ice?"
Alijandro sounds reminiscent of Francis Underwood from House of Cards.
"Corporal Ernesto Ramirez present and accounted for. I'm not specifically trained in life support engineering, but let me have a look."
"Are you training for breaches and boarding actions? I am curious what's on the other side of that door. Systems are down, could be frozen vacum, but from the heat in here a radio active infero is just as likely."
"What is going on..... what happened?"
"What reality is this?"
I'll look at the pods to see if I can determine how long we've been under, it would be good to know if it was short or long.
[Oh good, twitchy techies]
Alijandro opens his trunk, rifle's through a few things.
"No, no, no. Ah perfect."
He tosses each of you a small orange fruit.
"Some sugar and fuilds might help orient you. I only have a few but they come from my orchards."
A spherical droid also come comes floating up out of the trunk.
Carefully eats.
Inspecting the Stasis Pods you can determine that they have been moved, perhaps several times. The two largest pod are clearly the oldest, the crude box the Khanate soldier climbed out of has no original paint left on it, the shell carbon scored and pitted with age and the visible insides are a hodge podge of replacement parts and jury rigged mechanisms clearly mating disparate technologies. If it is an original Khanate Pod then it is clearly an antique older than recorded history, millennia old... which would seem impossible. The second largest Pod, the Aslan made pod is in better shape, though clearly still an antique, but the man who stepped from it is dressed like out of an old vid-drama, a historical re-enactment from before the Imperium.
As to your own pod, it has clearly seen better days, but at least you can read the diagnostic screen. Unfortunately in place of 'Elapsed Time' you merely have a string of 9's, an error code of some sort. The final pod seems by comparison to be absurdly new, almost shiny.
Inspecting the hatch it does not appear to be sealed, but it is unpowered. It takes a moment to find the manual override, if you want to lever the door open the hard way. With four people in a small room the air won't remain breathable long.
"Thanks for the fruit, Alijandro." During eating, closes eyes with happy memories. "I would one day enjoy touring your orchards, too. Let's live long enough to make that happen."
Looks about for any other not-obvious points of entrance or exit, including vents, and will ask around for some help. "So far this room is safe, but if we are securing this ship room by room to fix life support I don't want surprises."
[afterwards]
"Alright, weapons check. What do we got and how will we best work together?
[Shares some of Fimion's pertinent close combat and tactical knowledge]
"Got a few years of this under my belt myself, so I don't mind taking, or sharing, point. Does anyone have working comms, and a program to assist mapping? Techs, pilots, engineers? I'm good with field dressings, so I can take a med kit if we got some."
"I should be able to help with technical data... if I can connect to the data streams."
"Weapons.... Check." He twirls the knife again. A practiced almost unconscious, motion switching it from forehand grip to bracer mounted.
"I can't poilet but if you should need help filling out your customs paperwork I'm your man."
"The ball can help map. I say we open the door. I know this smell, slow death. I'll take my chances out there."
Combat armor (I'll check if I've got full tank of air - if so I will go on tank rather than foul ship atmosphere), gauss rifle, comm pad (probably not usable here, but I'll check just in case there's signal for it), IR/LI goggles, PRIS, hand computer. Combat armor has medikit built in though I don't have any meds currently loaded in it. I'm a advance landing prep engineer (computers, mechanic, electronics, m-drive engineering, explosives, recon) and I know how to use this gauss rifle. Did some urban insertions so know a bit about talking to the locals (streetwise).
Once the hatch is levered open you can see directly across from you a dark and obviously disused lounge area. Heading to the right is a generously wide passageway a bit more than a dozen meters long and ending in an open corner. On the passageway wall opposite you can see a line of evenly spaced hatches, all closed and obviously lacking in power... possibly crew quarters. The pattern of emergency lights suggests the bridge is down the passageway, though that is merely a guess. There is no relief from the oppressive heat or stale air in the open hatch.
Inspect the doors for any indication of what lies beyond each (signs, keypads, etc).
"OK, I'll scout point and relay back. Here's some common gestures to know..."
[Shows a few basic Squad Tactical Gestures]
"I expect the rest of you know how to hash out the remaining ranks amongst yourselves. Give me a heads up if you need advice."
[Checks gear last time, giving a few seconds for someone to speak up]
"Alright, let's go. We can check out what looks like crew quarters later."
I crouch down, peer out, and then attempt stealth to duck walk from doorway to lounge cover to the hallway, move quietly down the hallway, and then wait flanking beside the open corner for the rest of the squad to follow a pace. When they fill the lounge, I will peek around the corner for any immediate danger.
"All right ball." Addressing the Drone. "Start mapping from this point."
Looks first at our door, it didn't seem to be normal cold sleep storage. After that I want the name of the ship, the fate of the passengers and crew and a window. A lounge should have food and drink. Check it for how advanced the decay is.
"I am starting to get a bad feeling."
Follows the big one after my initial sweep.
The nearest door has some sort of manual keypad and sensor, similar to the sort you've seen on Outsider ships before, but without power there is nothing else the pads can tell you. It takes a long moment before you realize the strange engraved metal plate is meant to be a primitive sort of data display, the symbol appearing to be, in your uncertain guesswork, to be a... number? Yes, you are almost certain that you've seen that sort of sigil before in ancient data-logs, representing a number. But how does it change? What does it represent? Why would anyone take to scratching numbers into metal to pass on such cryptic and meaningless information. Its all very inefficient.
The hatchway you leave does not appear to be a standard door, but rather a maintenance hatch, for accessing uncommon areas of a ship on irregular basis, perhaps even covered by decorative bulkheads, now missing.
In the lounge area you can see another passage leading in the same direction as the first, along with sturdy plastic furniture that might serve adequetly as an impromptu medical station in emergencies... or it could be simply cheap and durable. There is a small mess area, in which you find cabinets full of some sort of sealed ration bars that look entirely unappetizing. One larger cabinet appears to be the Ship's Locker, complete with some simple, sturdy shotguns, a couple of stretchy emergency vacc suits and other useful emergency sundries, though most it appears to be severely neglected and potentially dangerous to use.
When you look up the second passage you see that it is laid out identically to the first, suggesting that the far corner wraps around a central block of rooms.
In the back of the lounge there appears to be a set of stairs, sealed, heading down to a lower level.
"Can you interface with any of the ships systems Ball?"
Checks a rat bar for a date? Then open one to judge the state of decay. If the shot guns use chemical propellent I'll do the same with a shell. There's heat and oxygen here, so time passes in this room, unlike where were just were.
Glancing more and more frantically between the detritus he's collecting and the super soldier, Fimion.
"How long were we in the ice?!"
Ernesto will be watching warily, and observing the state of shipboard systems.
"Why such a simple way to interface with the drone?"
Looks completely confused.
"It's a simple device, it mostly keeps my social calendar and reminds me of proper forms of address. For instance as soon as you tell it your name and rank it will remember. It will remember your birth day and remind me to send a card as well if you like."
The extra passage suggesting a loop looks good. Shoulders relax a bit in the hopes of less confrontation, and promise of clearing area (and getting a sense of the ship).
I hand signal the squad to stay, once they secure the lounge.
/STAY
I continue walking quietly down the hall, weapon down, avoiding hugging walls due to slugs' propensity to travel walls during firefights, hoping to confirm this is a loop showing up on the other side of the lounge. The separation from sight range is still worrisome...
The drone swoops around a bit, seemingly baffled by the lack of power to any systems, and it begins flying down the hall, looking for systems to interface with. You can observe its progress on your remote.
You turn your attention to the food bars, but the numbers printed on the package appear to be some sort of code, no doubt easily understood by the correct systems but meaningless to you. You open one up and find a compact bar of... stuff. It seems very well preserved. As to its edibility, it seems probable that it won't kill you... that someone no doubt intended it to look and smell the way it does, but that person may never have intended to actually eat it. That or they are some sort of culinary sadist.
Cutting open one of the dozens of shells in the locker you find a stable chemical powder that smells like chemical propellant and little sign of decay, so it is likely the other shells are usable.
"How long? How long?"
The nobleman starts looking increasingly frantic as he shouts questions into his remote, clearly at a loss for what to do and expecting his poor dumb droid to provide answers. A stream of data from the bridge to his remote passes across the screen but it means nothing to him. As he repeats his question again the remote chirps once and tentatively offers a flickering holo-display showing a running clock of how long its been active, a little under ten minutes.
"Here technical data."
Shoves the pad at the tech.
"You said you could help. What ship is this? How long have we been in the ice?"
Quote from: Headless;1000516"Here technical data."
Shoves the pad at the tech.
"You said you could help. What ship is this? How long have we been in the ice?"
Ernesto will look at the pad and see if any of it makes sense to him.
Glancing at the readout you are immediately alarmed at all the red warning indicators on the various boards that you can see. Beyond that you have a vague impression that the drone has interfaced with the ship's comm system, which should mean access to internal comms, though you can't quite see how to do that through the little remote. You should be able to get at least the ship's name from the Comm transponder, but again you're a little out of your depth.
"Enough of this. Follow!"
He glide hops (low grav) down the corridor toward the bridge. [Follow was a command for the trunk]
Glances about and follows the man and his floating luggage!
The two of you head down the hall to the bridge, passing powerless hatches along the way. You can see the bridge, its own emergency hatch wide open and powered, a typical protocol, and step inside. Its better lit than the hallways, not least because most of the control boards are flashing with angry red lights and indicators. The bridge is surprisingly roomy, with stations for what appears to be a dozen people, though several are obviously 'optional'. There is even a station in roughly the center of the bridge, some sort of lectern, that appears to be a command station, though you have never seen a standing Captain.
There appear to be some windows, an uncommon design in your experience, though they are currently covered by armored shutters. There is a small round drone hovering near one control station... comms apparently... and plugged into it.
You can see a large display with what appears to be an iconograph display of the ship, lit up with red panels... a damage control display perhaps? Though the text is in an unfamiliar script you find you can read it, the indicator demonstrating that this is the E.N.D.S. Frozen Elegy.
Cooper begins looking for a way to access the ship's data. Particular looking for some kind of logs and/or history of ship events.
On the primary control board, where the Pilot, Astrogator and Sensor Operators could all work, you find a primary access to the Ship's Computer. For a long moment you are confused as to how to use the Interface, consisting as it does of some form of manual input, but you find a single cable, clearly newer than the rest of the controls, that looks very like a typical Avatar I/O jack. Despite the memories of crude surgery, you can feel the comforting weight of a matching jack on the back of your head. Almost shaking with hunger for Data-Feed, you plug in.
It is so very small, cramped and stuffy and so terribly empty. Its better than the Avatar-Space you've been stumbling around in, but not by much, and it is haunting, a Data-Sphere with no Data, unconnected to anything. You can feel your Black-Chip warm and ready, undiscovered by your Judges, but there is nothing to use it on.
After some searching you find the hints of Data, the Archives that used to be, whispered ghosts of past records, but aside from that all you can find are the core systems hardwired into the ship's computer. Eager you devour what little there is. Damage from weapon's fire, end of fuel. Interruption of services. Time since last system update...
Velocity?
Curious. You've had some experience with ships before and the numbers scrolling by seem wrong to you. There is enough architecture remaining to crunch the numbers, the computer seems healthy, its merely missing its data-stacks for some reason.
You are travelling at an absurd velocity, not in Jump-Space, but impossibly close to light-speed, and have been for some time. The Ship's Computer informs you, somewhat uncertainly, that it appears to have been doing so without interruption for several Standard Decades, though due to the purely theoretical equations for Relativity it cannot translate that into Sidereal Time.
While you ponder that the Computer's primitive presence draws your attention to the alert it has been desperately broadcasting for several hours. The primary power plant is almost out of fuel, and if it goes out it may be impossible to restart. Every system that can be shut down has been shut down, including all secondary reactors, life support. Emergency Repair protocols includes waking the crew.
You observe that there is a large supply of fuel in a secondary tank that is currently disconnected from the power plant, being routed to the currently inactive and damaged Jump Drive. It must be manually re-routed.
Attempt to explain the fuel issues to the group (all those on the bridge).
Any estimation on how much time we have until the fuel is emptied (if the secondary is not re-routed)?
"Corporal Ramirez said he was an engineer. I hope he can open the valve for the auxiliary fuel supply."
I go for the astrogation station, I can read that. Posistion, date?
"E.N.D.S.? What kind of a ship is this? What was your mission? Where is your crew?"
You cannot pull any Library data out of the computer, but you can pull some sensor data that shows you are in an area of space strangely devoid of stars, though you will be passing by a nearby system in perhaps another year at the rate the ship is travelling as you re-enter a more normally populated region of space.
E.N.D.S. appears to stand for Earth Naval Defense Ship. There is no mission data you can find and for Crew it reveals the presence of four members on Deck 1, including two on the bridge.
Quote from: Headless;1000915"Corporal Ramirez said he was an engineer. I hope he can open the valve for the auxiliary fuel supply."
I go for the astrogation station, I can read that. Posistion, date?
"E.N.D.S.? What kind of a ship is this? What was your mission? Where is your crew?"
Sadly, my specialties don't include power plants, however, hopefully re-routing fuel is a simple enough task to fall under my general engineering knowledge. I also have mechanical knowledge. So I will start looking into how to get the fuel re-routed and keep that power plant going.
To manually reroute the fuel you know you'll have to find Engineering, the display indicates it is on the third deck, on the opposite end of the ship.
We have control of internal comms right?
"Fimion," over internal comms ship wide or just in the room he is in if we can tell that.
"Corporal Rameriz and the Drone are on the way down to engineering to manually re route some fuel. The tech and I will support from the bridge, I don't know what you're good at but we could both use some help. The ship is empty except for us 4."
Take's the remote back from Ramirez, "Ball this is Corporal Ramirez, go with him and accept his voice commands."
On to Engineering then.
Have I secured the Loop, or even Deck 1, yet?
PC Autopilot for GM: Fimion runs basic security sweep of decks ahead of engineers and techs. If they die first, well, Fimion will be mostly S.O.L.
Correctly reasoning that the Engineering section would be on a lower deck and to the rear of the ship, like every ship he's ever served on, Fimion forces open the stairwell next to the lounge as Corporal Rameriz joins him from the bridge. With perhaps undue haste the two of you also force the second hatch without checking, but the lower deck appears no more dangerous than the upper deck. You immediately note that the stairs continue down to a third deck, but an emergency deck-plan image near the hatch indicates that there are two levels to Engineering, the M-drive being at least partially housed on this deck, while the Jump Drive and primary power plant are located on the lowest deck.
While you are considering this information, Fimion notices a small figure down the passageway from the stairs, crouched near the bulkhead with one arm deep in an open maintenance panel. She does not seem to notice the two of you, and there is an open tool-bag nearby.
Fimion assesses the small figure: humanoid?, sapient?, threat value?, etc.
[Gestures] WAIT!
/Attempts to Sneak to "small figure."
When I feel I have the upper hand, both in visual and drawing weapon sight, I will question loudly, "Freeze! Hands where I can see them. Who are you and what are you doing?"
PC Auto: I want to know: is she a threat to our reactivating life support (sane, negotiable, cooperative); her willingness to help us; any extra info about our situation (persons, places, things, times). Will gladly de-escalate, and even cooperate, so as to live.
You manage to approach all the way up to where she is working without her appearing to notice you. At your shout she looks up at you mildly.
"If I put my hands up the plasma capacitor I have my hands on will discharge into the ship, probably killing you and me both, maybe even your friend. Maybe you should let me work, acazi?" She pauses for a moment. "You two must be the new crew. Good, 'bout damn time someone did something about our situation. Hand me that number four crimp, would you?"
Seeing that you are not satisfied, she sighs.
"Look, acazi. I'm trying to safely discharge the port railgun firing chamber so's I can get on with crawling up in the guts to lube the feed mechanism. Explaining who I am might better wait until I don't have my hands full. Besides... I'm sure you got bigger fish to fry than me, eh?"
"Does that seem odd to you?"
Find out everything I can about her. When she loaded? Destination? Sounds like she is passenger not crew. Back pay? Account balance? What has she drawn from ship stores? Are their more passengers?
Citations for bravery in combat?
Can the drone scan her with out being obvious/invasive?
"That seems like a bizzar response to me, what do you make of it Tech Sir?"
"Why is she lubing the weapons? Is she expecting combat again soon? Can you see anything on scans?"
Going over the records you have available on the bridge you can see that she enters and leaves her cabin like clockwork, to the minute, spending exactly ten hours of every day-cycle in her cabin, according to access logs for various hatches and automated systems she appears to have spent the last year of ship-time mostly going from deck to deck at a slow pace. The only records that have been manually inputted in the entire year you have records for appear to be updates to the maintenance logs. You can see that the railgun systems are due for regularly scheduled maintenance for today.
It does seem highly unusual that she would ignore the critical power failure to focus on scheduled maintenance, however.
From what you can tell she does not have appeared to spent any time on the upper deck in the last year outside of her ten hours a night and a handful of pre-scheduled maintenance logs for the bridge.
Given the current, highly unusual, velocity of the ship it is unlikely anyone could even approach the ship, much less attack. Ships normally travel at relatively sedate speeds, measured in perhaps hundreds of meters per second, or they enter Jump, which is functionally 'static'. You are currently travelling at something like millions of meters per second, and have never heard of any ship, or missile, reaching that speed under its own power, but then you are not a pilot.
"Fimion, Ramirez. I think she's some kind of maintenance bot. See if you can change her priorities and get her to help you with the fuel."
"Ok thats taken care of. What next. Oh of course, salavage!"
Starts humming.
"First we need to incorperate.... The Relic Universe corporation? Might be a bit pretentious but it will do for now. 4 shares or 5? You're right there might be more of us 60 equal shares. 15 for each of us, with provisions for anyone else coming out of the ice before we reach a star port to be a full equal partner.... 20% off the top for maintenance? Unless a Majority votes different, tie go's to the status quo. Ship liquidated ...? Leave that blank for now discuss later."
Hmmm, some more...
"Ok now I just need names signatures and a retina or DNA scan when you get a chance... Lets see if I can get the computer to register our claim.
Date? SON OF A LEAKY HEAT EXCHANGE!
No there's got to be provisions for imprecise dates, we aren't the first ship to travel at reltivistic speeds."
Corporal Ramirez is able to get the fuel switched with only a moment of minor panic after he accidentally hits the wrong button on an engineering panel to 'vent tanks', which does nothing due to the lack of power. Someone has set the ship to use only one of the several sub-reactors that makes up the primary plant to conserve fuel, but this provides more than enough power to run life support and internal lights and gravity.
An investigation of the bridge eventually reveals the entire Data-Stack, containing all the computer's memory, including software packs, has been fried by a high energy surge, apparently from a weapon attack on the ship itself and needs to be replaced. The computer survived mostly intact due to very old fashioned fuses and a hardened design common on military ships.
Regarding your current velocity, the pilot eventually determines that the most likely 'cause' was a highly theoretical jump malfunction, as any other cause would either involve the ship being torn apart and crushed by absurd levels of thrust OR an impossible amount of time spent accellerating at 'safe' levels... As the theory would have it, a catastrophic failure of the Jump Envelope, which normally results in a ship being reduced to sub-atomic mist spread over several parsecs, could... in theory... collapse at the exact moment when both ends of the envelope are 'open', ejecting the ship from Jump Space before its fully translated to the realm of conventional physics, and thus inertia.... allowing absurd accelleration to occur with relation to the physical universe, but not experienced by the ship. This has never, in his experience, been observed.
With power you can run the sensors through navigation and see that the region of space you've been crossing is strangely devoid of stars for several parsecs behind you and around you, but the ship will be entering a more populated region in a few years travel... which might allow you to calculate the time dilation for relativitistic speeds if you want to wait several months.
The only way to slow down would be to attempt a jump, as entering jump space would effectively stop the ship without throwing you all against the front bulkhead at a significant percentage of light speed, or take several decades of high-g braking (which you don't have enough fuel for). Attempting Jump Calculations at this speed, and with barely enough fuel, and no astrogation data, is dicey.
Going to attempt to access the ship's sensor logs/other logs to look for any information on what attacked the vessel.
With the data stack fried there are no records except what remains in the active buffer. For sensor data that is a few hours of data at best.
"So blind... how can they operate with so little little input!"
"So... at this point things seem secure on used decks. Now I guess it is up to you engineer techs to save our hides." Relaxes massive rifle readiness and goes to parade rest, smirking. "We believe in you. We got no other choice."
"Ok Fimion, while the pilot s and techs figure out where we are and how to stop this elaborate coffin, why don't we take inventory."
"Look for clue's to how we got here? How long we've been here. Where here is? Whats valuble? Want to hire the Merc Robinson (?) to give us a tour?"
"What are our best options? Facilitate a jump?"
"If you can calculate a jump Cooper I would love to get home. There are no nearby stars by but we should be able to figure out where we are. Once we know that we can decide where to go."
Speaking to everyone. (Not the bot)
"I've registered a salvage claim on this ship. Each of us an equal share. I propose we sell to the first reasable offer. I don't have the assets to offer the rest of you a fair price for your shares. So it seams to me that liquidation is the most fair.
There may also be something of value in the safe.
Other thoughts?"
"Are we even within civilized-enough space for this to even matter yet? We might have to ride this mount until we reach a semblance of normalcy." Looks gravely around at the ship, taking account of how fish-out-of-water we as a group are.
"I'll go explore this vessel for any additional info, taking inventory as you say Alijandro." Goes off to explore unseen decks with an eye to pieces of this mystery.
"So who has experience with this sort of thing (jumping)?"
"Fimion, I agree we may be on this ship a while. However in my experience fair dealing and clear expectations up front prevent lawsuits and hard feelings (glances at that massive cannon you carry) later on."
"Anyone know about E.N.D.S? Last I heard Earth was ruined or destroyed. Fimion, were you at the siege of earth?
Anyone recognise anything about this ship? Know how we got on it? This isn't the ship I loaded on."
"I'll go with you Fimion. Even a single scrap of paper might tell us something. We've got coms now, so I don't see any reason to not to wander."
....
On the sweep. "Lets stop into the sick bay. I've got a condition, ice rales, childhood illness, don't worry its not contagious, I feel fine but I should see if I need to go back on a treatment."
Check myself, possibly with the help of the Ball.
Precious Moments During the Jump
"How come hard liquor stores are never factored into basic life support values anymore... The ancients seemed to have got it right then."
----
"C'mere. C'mere! I'm not gonna shoot you, buddy. Just wanna have a drink wit'chu 'n talk is all..." /snores
----
"Your hangnail first aid brings to mind my dressing a compound fracture while we were taking suppressive heat down planet... Yeah, good times, good times."
---
"Whaddya mean, 'Dunno, computer doesn't say. Guess we'll find out later,'? Just slap it hard on its side to jog its memory! Used to work in my day..."
"Ok. Crew." -Addressing all in cluding the bot.
"We're on a badly damaged ship. With makings from an unknown Nation. Jumping into an unknown star system, in what to me maybe a completly unknown universe."
"Fimion, were you at the siege of earth? Cause your cold sleep coffin looks like it was. Who ran the galaxy when you went into the ice? When I went in it was the Aslan, but judging from the sideways glances, these guys have been giving me that aint right either. (I translated OOC stuff into IC stuff, we've been together for days now.)"
"Near as I can figure this ship has been traveling out of control for at least 60 years, but I didn't get on this ship. (Please correct me if I'm wrong Spike) Did you? The upper limit for how long we've been on this ship is in the thousands of years. Can anyone try and Carbon date the rat bars?"
"Their should be something on this ship left from the crew, but its so clean I almost think someone is playing a game with us."
None of that matters until we get back to the real universe. Which could be wildly different than we expect. What do we do when we get there?
Should we run drills so if need be we can fight the ship?
We are going to need to make a couple fuel runs.
I intend to have that safe open before we leave our jump.
And I'm taking the Double berth."
"Do we get to blast open the safe?" ;) "Who wants to play with explosives!" :)
Quote from: Opaopajr;1003411"Do we get to blast open the safe?" ;) "Who wants to play with explosives!" :)
"I think I could do something in that department."
Ramirez will check into what we have for explosives, ideally something he can make a small directed charge with (we don't want to blast the insides of the safe out).
Lets see if its.open first. I know that will be very upsetting for the jar heads if it is. Robinson do you have the code? Is it electrinic or pure mechanical?
Wait. If the stack is fried then there is no passcode in memory. So any code should open it right? Who knows about computers?
-Privately.
Clifton. When you plug in can you see robertson in the... In there? Gestures at the computer.
Robertson looks at you strangely.
"I dunno, Acazi, why don't you ask The Bot?"
Then she throws a half eaten protein bar at your head and stomps off.
Picks up the Rat bar, eats it absently.
-Hmmmm. What would I do if I was stuck here for 60 years?
Starting in on the bridge and then engineering, Cooper begins inspecting systems that he might have a reasonable chance of repairing. Focused on restoring information and data logs.
Quote from: Ras Algethi;1003489Starting in on the bridge and then engineering, Cooper begins inspecting systems that he might have a reasonable chance of repairing. Focused on restoring information and data logs.
The Data Stack, the ship's main memory is completely blown, it can't be repaired, only replaced. While there are terminals throughout the ship, they almost all link back to the main Computer rather than being independent. The exception to this is the computer on the Jenny, the ship's launch, which is independent and undamaged.
There are a lot of repairs that can be done, everything except Structure Damage can be repaired with the parts on board and the workshop, provided the stockpile holds out, but it will be a lengthy process, one that would be made much easier if the repair drones were up and running. Five of the six are in their 'cradles' but the sixth is lying sprawled on the cargo bay floor, non-functional but apparently undamaged. Of course, without an auto-repair program running someone will need to direct them from the bridge or the engineering bay terminal, though there the loss of the sixth drone seems to be interfering with the rest of the drones for some reason.
Cooper makes his way to the ship's launch to see what information can be found on the computer there.
You find that the expected computer jack is not present in the launch, forcing you to interface with the primitive and awkward manual interface. The computer is comparatively weak, but intact. The on board data has randomly collected sensor logs from various systems in which it has been used in the past, an impressive if unsorted collection, as The Jenny, as the small boat identifies itself as to you, appears to be used in, quite possibly, every single system the Frozen Elegy has been to. Unfortunately there is little Astrographic data, as The Jenny has no Jump Drive.
If you are willing to spend several days sorting the data by hand you might build a reasonably useful database of previously visited systems, which could then be compared to a standard starmap... which you currently lack... to retrace the steps of the Elegy since the introduction of The Jenny to the ship.
In more heartening news you find that The Jenny reports that it has not been launched in just short of two centuries, and that several of its last several launches involved weapon's fire. Upon reviewing the relevant data-logs, again through the agonizingly slow and awkward process of viewing it on a screen, it appears that some sort of war was raging, across several systems, as similar designs of ships appear in many of the battles... though all identifiable ships appear, mostly, to have been on one side.
As for what they were fighting, the sensor logs can provide no answers, only profound and unsettling questions. Every form of sensor returned only error data, and the visual/optical scans show headache inducing images that simply are not possible in three-dimensional space. The closest image-metaphor you can conjure up were amusing data-sets designed to create three dimensional models of fifth or sixth dimensional objects. Only these aren't data-models, these are real, and the portions not rendered in the models is fully, impossibly rendered on the screen.
"Ball go help Cooper."
Go's to the trunk. Gets 2 of the last 8 orange fruit in all of creation, and a handtooled leather briefcase. Goes looking for Robertson.
"I've thought about how I would cope with being lost and alone on a ship for decades. You've done far better than I would have. Do ypu play backgammon?
...
I like to have a little something riding on a game. Shall we say my orange fruit against your story?
She looks at you like you are a crazy person before shrugging as if accepting that she has nothing better to do.
"Never heard of it, acazi."
Teach her to play backgammon. After the first game propose the wadger. If I win she tells me her story. If she wins I give her an orange fruit.
We could play for different stakes but she doesn't look like an Aslan so wouldn't be intetested in a packet of spice, and the frozen horse embryos are in the other trunk.
Seems like time is what we have. Cooper begins the arduous process of shifting and sorting data.
As you play it seems obvious that she has figured out your intent, as before the first game she stops, her hand hovering over the dice.
"I ain't stupid, Acazi. You wanna play games? Then tell me what the game is,I don't sit with liars."
After you tell her that you are after her story she sits back, dice in one hand, fiddling with the wooden stick thrust through the knot at then end of her braid with the other. After a period of silence she points to the fruit and thumps her side of the table meaningfully, then again after you pass over a fruit, until she has all of them on her side.
"Not much to tell. Born and raised on a shithole, escaped by joining the Merc. Lizardi's Lunatics out of Solchis. Had a rough patch after a job went bad the worst way possible, three of us survived out of a battalion, an' me in not so good shape, but I... got over it and wound up with the Gyrfalks. Good folks, but the brass was a bit crazy. Good time to make the move, I guess, as the war was heating up all over. Or a bad time, seeing as everyone was losing bad. Fought all over the place, can't even remember the names of most of 'em... hit planet, shoot the other side for a few days and bounce, cusha?
Then... then things get weird. Like... I... I don't really know when exactly but memories just stop, or fade or something... like they are there, but hiding. I wake up in the cargo bay, half buried under a squid-bot. Bad times, acazi, bad times for I don't know how long. Never felt anything, any confusion like... no, thats not true. I felt like that in the hospital, recovering, cusha? I used to dream that damn squid-bot was trying to kill me, but... you know... if bad dreams are a problem you don't join the merc."
She shrugs, peeling a fruit with ruthless precision.
"Anyway. Took so long to sort myself out, to find 'normal' that I'd lost track of time. Found myself busywork keeping up the maintenance... that started during the crazy-time, cusha?... and just kept going. One day at a time, Liz would tell me, an' so that's what I did. Never really done ship work before, guess I had a knack for it."
She pops the peeled fruit in her mouth, savoring it, then stands and sweeps the rest off the table into her hands.
"Thanks for the change of pace, acazi."
There's a squid bot on the ship? Where is it?
Fimion sits, rifle relaxed in hand, and stares off into space with a slight smile playing on his face. He won't respond to much conversation beyond inflected tonal grunts, meaning things like "yes," "no," "huh?" and "ok." Anyone who has been in the military, or competitive sports, recognizes getting one's battle face on.
Right on schedule the warning sounds, lights all over the ship flashing to indicate Jump-End. There is a moment of indescribable normalness settling over you as the laws of the physical universe once again assert their primacy.
Your poorly calculated jump has done what you expected, and deposited your ship, now again dangerously low on fuel, in the outer regions of a star system, motionless in relation to the ancient dance of the stars once more.
Once the moment of sensor blindness passes as waves of high energy hydrogen plasma-ejecta from the collapsing Jump Envelope passes, you can 'see' the star system laid out before you. A main sequence star, four rocky inner worlds, four gas giants and a scattering of asteroids and other stellar debris, but no 'belt'. The comms roar to life with radio signal, staticky and broken by distance and background noise... it sounds like a working star-port chatter, at least at first. The longer you listen the stranger it sounds, an entirely one sided conversation full of non-sequitors and garbled, random jargon.
It doesn't take long to triangulate, and determine that the likely source is the fourth planet in the system, several days travel in system, especially with your M-Drives heavily damaged as they are. It seems probable that your fuel will give out before you arrive. You are much closer to one of the gas giants in system, and with The Jenny fully operational you should be able to refuel safely with a day or two of work.
"I vote fuel before trouble."
Quote from: Headless;1004667"I vote fuel before trouble."
Definitely, though as long as one has SOME fuel, anything in system is reachable, it just might take a long time (unless we aren't doing traditional Traveller maneuver drives).
Quote from: Headless;1004667"I vote fuel before trouble."
"I agree with the sane option. Fuel to get the fuck away, just in case, makes sense." Goes back to relaxed staring, "But I leave it up to you techs beyond that..." :)
Quote from: Opaopajr;1004739"I agree with the sane option. Fuel to get the fuck away, just in case, makes sense." Goes back to relaxed staring, "But I leave it up to you techs beyond that..." :)
We're going to need you to go EVA and collect an exhust sample.
-Hands over a clear bag.
Alright crew. We're fueled up. The way I see it we have 3 options. We can jump to the source of all that chatter and see what the angler fish has to say.
We can jump to a different giant and go probabilisticly searching for a silent abandoned fueling station. Or we can jump away and see what the next spooky system has to offer.
I'm leaning towards finding an abandoned fueling station, but not very strongly.
We either engage or we try and sneak our way back to recognizable civilization (which given our extremely diverse histories, I'm not sure we'll find...).
I'd say let's investigate the chatter.
"Well, fuel's done. I assume that covers our vitals like life support and food, too. Time to make sense of all this!
"I say we take this chatter head on!" Slams palm to head, like a headbutt. "Yeah! Let's do this! ... Wait, how strong are our shields and weapons?"
Well since our notional enemies warp space and time, depopulate systems, reprogram entire space stations, have kidnapped us and cast us a drift a thousand years from where we belong I don't think it matters.
Twirls monkey knife.
Sunward!
When the screen shows the crumbled mega-statue's face on screen... /turns to the side and *spits*
"Statue of a scum sucker. Would rather wait 'n die to draw a good bribe than fight to live, for themselves let alone others."
/turns back to the screen, starts methodically cleaning my rifle. "Eloi face. World cleansed of their cowardice, no doubt. Maybe by bugs, maybe by something else. Good."
"We can go down, but I have no patience with their type." Looks at the rest of the crew. "I'm down for killing more bugs, if they're there. Or helping civilization rebuild, what's left topside." Returns to rifle cleaning, "Yet if we see any of those poncy skags who once tried to sell out my race to extinction, I'm wasting 'em before they can do more damage."
/looks up at fellow crew
"Clear?"
Right, for now I'm thinking any human is a good human. But hey if you want to refight the second battle of earth its not like I can stop you.
"Now that we're closer where exactly is that chatter coming from?"
From the Comm:
"Odoga, Five by five. Confirmed Pad Three, Pad Five. Fire Team Sigma to Floride station three. You are cleared for lift off. Balshmir, the Stars Welcome you and carry you home in time. All Skies clear for The Emininent Princess out of Doti IV."
There is no break in the chatter for replies, and often emphasis is on strange words or syllables, as if the speaker wasn't entirely certain how the words or phrases should sound.
(Just to confirm everything in orbit is wrecked, including the moon. Are there any salvageable explorable objects not down the gravity well?)
So we'll take the Jenny to low port station then? Whats our objective? I have a feeling we are hunting ghosts not bug Fimion. Is this a raid? An invasion? Reconosince in force? I don't think its a trade or diplomatic mission, I don't think there's anyone down there.
My priorities.
Answers.
Sophants.
Fresh fruit. - tosses out the last 5 orange fruits in the universe. I ate one on my own time.
New computer and if it happens to have a ship wrapped around it thats good too.
Salvage and scrap.
Shineys and fancies.
Anyone staying with the ship?
Anyone have other priorities?
"I'll go planet-side. Sorta been my thing for years." Fimion repeats Alijandro's priorities list a few times to memorize it, while picking out a travel medkit. "Alright, I am read to take point again. Which of you are quiet and lethal enough to take down there?"
"I was actully planning to ask questions first, shoot later, I know its not traditional but... As for quiet."
Points down at his stylish very comfortable and whisper soft slippers. Then raises an eyebrow at Fimions clunky armor and I'm assuming heavy combat boots, though its never been said.
Fimion's boots are indeed big and clunky. They even have powerful electromagnets in the soles so he can retain his footing in zero-gee.
Ramirez is game to go down (he's urban recon trained - Streetwise and Recon).
"You'll be surprised how sensible these boots are in wartorn debris fields." ;) "And I've been known to get around unnoticed okay."
Twirls knife.
"Ok, but if you want some curly toed shoes you just let me know. I think I have an extra pair in my trunk."
Winks.
The four of you pile into the cramped cabin of The Jenny, launching from The Frozen Elegy as it orbits the green world below. Cooper pilots you towards the surface, taking a long, looping route over the planet as you use your eyes and sensors to gauge the conditions on the surface as you approach, and allowing you the opportunity to triangulate the source of the radio broadcast you've been monitoring since you arrived in system over a week ago.
As you approach within a mile of the surface you are able to see signs of habitation, what appear to be small villages, agriculture and so forth. The world itself seems swampy and wet, even from the climate controlled cockpit of the The Jenny you imagine you can feel hot wet air pressing against you, biting bugs tormenting you...
A pass over the anomalous desert allows you to determine that the greyish sand is some sort of carbon crystal that appears to originate in the slowly dissolving statue itself, and the shifting sands and shattered crystal appear to conceal hidden ruins, discernible only as regular geometric patterns in the grey dunes.
At last you approach the twin Low-Port stations, one filled with molten, shattered hulks of starships, lots of radioactive signal and presumably toxic wastes, the other now revealed to be a strangely primative mockery of a Low-Port, made of local materials that only appear to loosely define the shape of a Starport. The radio signal appears to originate in the blasted wastes, from an intact antenna near the fringes close to the primitive mock-up, but the only signs of life you see come from the mock-up itself. As you approach you realize that the 'reinforced concrete landing pads' are nothing more than bare earth painted with some crude natural pigments in the correct shades and shapes... if bizzarely laid out... of an actual landing pad.
You can land here or you can fly on to someplace less... occupied.
Have they seen us? Can we tell if they are human? What is their tech level? Electricity? Internal combustion? Plasma? Is there a safe spot to land in the radio active ruins?
If they haven't seen us and there is a safe spot I vote we land in the slagged space port.
If they have seen us, land on their thoughtfully provied landing pad.
I don't feel strongly about either choice.
"As fun as it is to fire my rifle, I'd rather collect loot to repair our ship without living interference. We already know there is working electronics still operating from that antenna."
/mentally checks medkit for anti-radiation, anti-toxin, anti-hystemines pills or the like.
"I wonder how useful our vacc suits will be to protect us from the original port's hazards...? Anyone wanna hazard a technical guess?"
"Also how good are our door locks on this jenny? Otherwise we'll have to post a marine to prevent any joyriders."
First glance has the whole place still hot. So you can explore it but even if you find something we can't use it since I don't plan to wear a hard suit inside our ship.
Looks like the last attack was two to three centuries ago. Anyone remember a war with an alien race estranged from Euclidean geometry?
Unless you can find clean salvage I say we go talk to the locals.
Is this normal? To slag a space port so savagely? (Tatics) Nothing useable is left in this system.
(Is the radio hot?)
"Hmm, those details leave us with little choice, unless we comb even more remote areas. Have no interest in cooking my innards with radiation..."
/makes effort to drill everyone on the jenny's passcode
"All of us gotta remember this as our life depends on it, because it might."
/double checks rifle and medkit (and any spare gear as part of my armor)
"Alright, ready as I'll ever be. Who wants to be our face to the locals? I'm used to it, but..."
/draws a wry smile ;)
"I don't wanna start our parlay shooting Eloi in the face. Best to do business first and leave pleasure for later."