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Re: The River

#16
Helene Leigh Wilson (TheatreGirl21) moved:

Helene tried to swallow her stomach back down and waited for the bridge to stop spinning. “Yes ma'am…” Helene unstraps herself from her chair. When she stands her legs give way. She catches herself on the edge of her chair before she hits the ground with her face. “Right away ma'am.” Helene stumbles down the corridors trying not to lose her lunch on the crew members she passes. How are they running around so fast?

When Helene finally gets to the corridor leading to the engine room she can smell it. Smoke. With all the will in her she makes a run for it. When the door opens she’s hit by the wall of gray fog. Her skilled eyes scan the room as fast as she can. Finally she spots it. It’s coming for the new cooling system. It must have shut down the entire generators? It shouldn’t have…

Pulling the grating off and she reaches a hand up into the long tube where the razor sharp blades wait. There doesn’t seem to be anything…wait. What is that? Her hand brushes against something. Fabric? She pulls it out. It’s a jumpsuit, but it’s not a uniform. At least not the one of The Heroditus. Checking that the fans spin correctly she replaces the grating. Just to be sure she checks around the rest of the engine room. Engine itself is pretty as ever, purring like it should, but there’s something hanging in the middle of it. She goes to get her wrench. Her tool box is already open though…had she left it like that? Looks like a couple things are missing. Grabbing the wrench she replaces the dangling piece. The generator kicks back on.

She looks at the jumpsuit she had pulled out. I should show that to the Cap… she thinks. Snatching it off the floor she makes a run for the bridge.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
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Re: The River

#17
Lt. Hannah Price (sotonrich) moved:

On more than one occasion at university Hannah had given herself a mighty hangover but those paled in comparison with post jump vertigo.

She couldn’t even remember her first jump during basic training, she had woken in the medbay after passing out and hitting her head on an interior bulkhead.

Thankfully she didn’t pass out anymore but damm if she didn’t feel like vomitting all over the comms station. Breathing through it she focused on her orders.

“Yes Ma'am.”

Internal communications were down across the ship.

Quickly tapping at the screens in front Hannah was able to isolate a damaged relay, create a workable bypass and reboot the system. The whole process took just under 4 minutes.

“Internal comms are operational Ma'am. You can address the ship at you discretion.

There are no external comms within range. I have begun handshake procedures with the outer relay beacons however given our estimated position it could be several hours before we receive a response."
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Post

Re: The River

#18
Gallus (GA-115) (Baroquen) moved:

Being a robot had its perks, like the lack of ability to feel nauseous. As everything goes dark, Gallus activates literal headlights, two beams of light shining from his mechanical eyes. “Objective received, Commander.” Gallus acknowledged the orders, following Wilson as soon as she headed off toward the engine room. The floor-lights helped them see, though Gallus kept his lights on as well in case there was another power outage.

When they both entered the engine room, Gallus began picking up on some strange readings. “Foreign matter detected.” He scanned the room as Wilson fixed the damage done, coming closer when she finds the jumpsuit. “This article of clothing does not match any of the official uniforms of the Heroditus crew. A thorough DNA test may provide information about the owner.” Gallus wanted to start one immediately, but as the engineer moved, he remembered that there were other things to be done as well.

Then there were the missing tools. Wilson retrieved the wrench and got the generate running again, but Gallus was focused on the open box. “Engineering Officer Wilson, you appear to be missing a drill, pliers, and screwdriver. Based on previous evidence, there is a likely chance the equipment was maliciously tampered with.” Gallus spoke, though the validity of his statement could be a simple misunderstanding.

Everything seemed to be back in order, which Gallus took note of. “Generators and cooling systems are now operational. Admirable work, Engineering Officer Wilson.” He followed as she took off running for the bridge. “Tightened security would be beneficial until data proves all-inclusive.” So many questions were unanswered and it would bother him until these were sorted out. The sudden outage, the jumpsuit, the missing tools, a possible traitor…all of it was unknown data that Gallus wanted to decipher.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Post

Re: The River

#19
Brand (you) moved:

Brand welcomed the queasiness of hyperspace jumps. There was something comforting in suppressing the effects of vertigo without ever losing combat readiness.

Alert and moving, Brand had already unbuckled her harness by the time the Commander began to issue orders. She focused on the old woman’s voice even as her eyes scanned the bridge for anything amiss.

Brand fed the output of the external sensor arrays into the navigational computer and sent the results over to the command module. Their position matched the target coordinates, they were where they were supposed to be.

As Fitzcurtis studied the results her face displayed a range of emotion beginning with puzzlement and ending in grim determination.

“Stop your transmissions, lieutenant!” she called out firmly to Hannah. “Our systems have been sabotaged! Until further notice we are to run silent. Shutdown everything, including transponders.”

Fitzcurtis allowed herself a moment to gaze at the stunned faces around her and wondered which of them she could trust. It didn’t matter, of course, as the saboteur – or saboteurs – had accomplished their task well enough in hacking the navigational computer and disabling power generation on the ship long enough to make certain that whatever ill fate awaited them was already well on its way.

“Specialist Brand,” the Commander finally said, turning to the alien female. “You are now acting security officer. I want defensive systems ready and weapons online on the double.”

If she had a talent for quizzical expressions, Brand would have arched an eyebrow.

“Congratulations, Brand.” the two words tumbled out of Hannah’s mouth as the other moved past her station. They felt awkward and Hannah was not sure why she had spoken them.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Post

Re: The River

#20
Helene Leigh Wilson (TheatreGirl21) moved:

Helene still had to get used to the robots. Although she had to admit that it was handy to have them calculate things faster while they went about their business. Something the robot had…“said” was stuck with her though. As she ran for the bridge she suddenly stopped.

“Uh…Gallus? You said a drill, pliers, and a screwdriver were taken? That could get someone up and into the internal tunnel systems. They could crawl across the ship and into the heart of it if they wanted and no one would know…”

If the robot replied Helene didn’t notice. Her mind was racing. “Come on. We should hurry.” Helene took off running with the robot following close behind her.

When they finally got to the bridge Helene took her stance, “Ma'am. Something to report….”
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Post

Re: The River

#21
Lt. Hannah Price (sotonrich) moved:

Sabotage! The thought had never crossed her mind. This was an old deep space exploration vessel. Nothing ever happened on these missions except weeks of endless drills and cataloging stellar phenomena, if they were lucky they may encounter a rare nebula or star cluster.

Still it would explain why the jump had happened so abruptly and was more violent than usual and the damage to the generators and internal comms, was that designed to slow the ship’s response to an emergency or to cover someone’s tracks?

Either way the problem with comms had taken her a few minutes to solve and a lot could take place in a few minutes.

“Handshake procedure cancelled Commander. All ships comms and internal systems have been reduced to minimal running.”

What was going on? Hannah began to review the last several minutes of logs. She scanned all ship communications both inter and extra ship and that’s when she spotted the anomaly just hidden below the surface…..shit!

“Commander!” she shouted involuntarily.

“Two minutes post-jump. A transmission was piggybacked on the handshake carrier frequency. Based on it’s strength I’d say it was intended to be received within this local sector.”

A message had been sent off the ship to someone or something nearby…
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
Post

Re: The River

#22
Brand (you) moved:

Humans! Brand thought with some exasperation. Undertaking a mission without adequate backup!

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She was the backup. Her promotion was as surprising as it was unwanted. During her initial briefing she was told that she would take lead in potentially hostile environments, whether they involved boardings of any sort or making planetfalls. That is where her true calling lay: personal combat. She had made 49 combat drops thus far and all of them had ended in at least nominal success with her direct assignments completed.

Now she knew why she could not arrange a preflight meeting with the security officer. There wasn’t one. Well, until now. And she did not feel a pressing need to catch up with herself.

Not surprisingly both the shields and the weapons systems had been disabled. Checking the log indicated that both passed the Port Nova preflight checks. Yet more sabotage.

An engineer would be able to bypass the bridge console and potentially bring the shields online but the targeting computer had been infected with a virus and only the fact that she had followed emergency protocols when she fired up the weapons system had kept the virus from being loosed on the central computer system. Manual override was a possibility or… a replacement targeting computer.

Brand gave a quick summary of the grim facts to Commander Fitzcurtis and awaited further orders.
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.

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