The ISS Verdant Dawn, a luxury starliner travelling toward the end of it's long run out into the fringe. The nearby space being filled with nebulae and sector wide expansions of cosmic effluvia and debris, blocking out any suns that might exist.
It's stately course is measured, it's systems well maintained on the profitable run, not so much from it's passengers as from the cargo it will pick up at the end of it's long run and return to the sector capital.
It's crew is well trained, it's facilities well maintained... and it will never be seen again...
This is the tale of it's passengers and crew... those who survive that is...
02:00, Ship's Time, Wonday March 23rd, 1142
ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! GRAVITY CONTROL MALFUNCTION! POWER SYSTEM MALFUNCTION! JUMP DRIVE MALFUNCTION! PRIMARY COMPUT...
The blaring from the ship's intercom trails off in a burst of static, leaving little doubt that the last bit was 'Primary Computer Malfunction'. The ship's gravity does indeed cut off, then reverse, then slam into a high G overburst that sends grav plates bursting into showers of sparks as they burn out. All over the ship, people are awakened in their berths, slammed into the ceiling, and then slammed into their berths again. Pressure klaxons sound, and bulkheads slam into place to protect atmosphere. The ship's hull screams, and rivets fire like champagne corks as the ship's superstructure is torqued beyond it's ability to hold.
Then the ship almost feels like it turns inside out, and then is pulled through a keyhole before being inflated again back to something resembling it's normal self.
It suddenly drops out of sidreal space and back into normal space, it's crew and passengers either dead or battered to unconsciousness...
4 damage to END, current END 4
Jenni came to, lying in her berth. What had just happened? She checked herself for permanent injury and found only a bruised arm and a few contusions. She struggled to her feet, feeling the deck reel beneath her. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Jenni struggles to her feat are either significantly easier or significantly harder depending on ones point of view. Her head still reeling, it takes her a minute to realize that the gravity is completely gone, and the floor she's trying to stand up from is actually the wall of her cabin.
Fru Fru yelps as Scandalous slams into the top of her compartment. Her little animal, whose emotions are expressed by its fur changing colors, was now bright red. It scurries around her body with it's freaky like squirrel hands so as to avoid getting crushed. Her limp body slams back into her bunk.
She moans in pain. The klaxons push her up. She grabs her stylish jumpsuit and zips it up. The skin tight fabric begs for mercy in just the right places. The pop star grabs the essentials and activates her camera drone.
Dice:
Damage: damage to DEX current DEX 09
END:
[dice=Where am I]2d6
[Dice=Damage]2d6-3
[Dice=END]2d6[Dice=Poor little Fru Fru Damage]2d6-3
Scandalous wakes up, and reaches for a suit that is not there. Looking around, she finds herself floating in mid air, her small pet floats nearby, it's fur black indicating it's severely injured, although the little white tips to the ears assures her it's still alive.
Dice: 2d6
Damage: 2d6-3 damage to DEX current DEX 09
END: 2d6
Dev awakens in a room lit garish red by the emergency lights. The ship has no gravity, and power seems to be down to bare minimum. He is not sure how much time has passed. He's floating in the small self service snack room he was in when the ship went haywire. There is food floating around, making a mess, and globs of liquid mixed in to further the mess where drinks that were sitting on the disposal shelf flew off and spilled.
Scandalous sees poor still Fru Fru and softly cries as she tries to dress herself.
Scandalous manages to grab the jumpsuit, and push her way into it, although it's a near thing as she floats in the air and spins.
Combat Alert! General Quarters!...no, wait, Misjump.. Malt snaps awake, operating on instinct before he processes the announcement coming across the speaker, and then all thought stops for a moment as he is hurled across the room.
Reverting to combat discipline, Malt shrugs into his gear and activates the mag boots before exiting into the corridor.
"Ytsa, connect me to the Bridge"
Scandalous features harden with determination as she spins. Activate voice interface. She calls to her smartphone. Activate camera. The AI causes the drone to whir to life. Come in for a close up. The grav floater engine slides smoothly to her and she grabs hold.
Jenni blanched for a moment as her stomach caught up with the fact that the artificial gravity was out, but her training kicked in and she soon righted herself and pushed gently off the wall in the direction of the door. The passengers were going to need help, not to mention the crew.
Scandalous's floater's grav turns on, and nothing much else happens, as the anti-grav can't work without gravity. But the phone turns on and the camera turns on. "error error no gravity field detected error error no system connections present error error" The AI reports, unable to compensate for an unexpected situation.
Malt gears up, as he does so, Ytsa begins to respond. "error comm system offline error unable to contact bridge error" The small device responds, it's AI not programmed for this sort of thing.
Stepping out into the hallway outside his quarters, Malt finds Glitch floating out into the hallway in a standard ship jumpsuit. She has a gash on her forehead, but looks ok.
Glitch sees Malt is not looking so good, he has a nasty looking bruise on his face, and one of his wings is bent in a way it shouldn't bend... probably.
The corridor in the crew quarters area is much shorter than it should be, the internal bulkhead has slammed down, and the lights on it indicate vacuum beyond, meaning that 2/3rds of the crew quarters as well as life support and secondary engineering are cut off and potentially exposed to vacuum.
Scandalous telekinetically brings Fru Fru to her.
She calls out. Help! We need help!
Fru Fru, being very small and light, floats slowly over to Scandalous.
Dev can hear a faint sound of noise somewhere nearby, but can't make out where it's coming from.
Tamm awakened as she was slammed into wall of her berth. The static coming over the intercom plays the perfect counterpoint to the throbbing of her head. She takes a second and quickly gets her bearings and to assess her wounds as she berates herself, Fool, always strap in when in space.
Realizing time is of the essence Tam orients herself and tries to put on her cloths and fill a satchel with her scant possessions.
Tam clomps out into the hallway, magnetic boots clicking as she walks into the hallway. The hallway is dimly lit with red emergency lights. The ship creaks and groans, and the air pressure is about 2/3rds of what it should be, indicating that there's been some atmospheric loss. Even looking down the hallway she can tell the ship is heavily damaged, the hallway has a noticeable twist to it.
Crap, its worse than I thought, Tam laments. No time to waste she quickly lumbers down the twisted hallway in the direction of the life rafts.
Tam hears a voice in the distance, yelling, but can't make out the words. Part of it is the thinner atmosphere.
Torn between her own survival instinct and her desire to help others Tam prgmatically concluded, Not my job.
As she continues toward the life rafts, All I need is a bunch of panicing passengers to slow me down.
Ignoring the voice, Tam continues down the corridor, following the flashing emergency arrows.
Several bulk heads have closed, indicating there are damaged portions of the ship without atmosphere.
She reaches the emergency life pod bay, and looks on at a bay with 5 pod doors, all of which are shut tight, the clear bulk head window showing that the pods have been used.
Also showing through the windows is a gas giant, with a distant sun, all backlit by a massive nebulae. The lass of the viewport is already scored by the gas, slowly mazzing over.
The planet is visibly growing larger as she looks through the window, indicating the ship has a significant delta currently.
"We need to get to a terminal and see if we can determine the level of damage. We can check for survivors on the way."
Seeing that Jenni seems comfortable in Zero-G, Malt stops only momentarily to adjust her position so she can reach a handhold (if needed) before shuffling painfully down the corridor, looking for survivors or someplace where he can assess the level of damage to the ship.
While he won't activate his life support at this point, he will put his life support mask in place for quick activation as needed, and then begins what he expects will be a fruitless check for comm signals.
"Yuftro to Engineering, please respond"
"Yuftro to Sickbay, please respond"
"Yuftro to nursikt Hospitality!, please respond..."
Until he receives a response, he'll leave his communicator open, seeking any transmission signal.
Yuftro finds that the ship's computer is down, and has taken the internal comm systems with it. The fact the internal comm systems are down is disturbing, as it means there's widespread systems damage. However, he does manage to get to the terminal at the entry to the crew area, and bring it up on emergency power. It can't connect to anything other than the most immediate areas, but the internal chron shows that about 6 hours have passed since the last time Yuftro looked at a chron, which means he and Genni were likely unconscious for 4-5 hours at least.
Something has gone horribly wrong, crew should have done a search for survivors at this point, although it was night shift, so most of the crew would have been in the crew area aft of Yuftro's and Jenni's room. Given the bulkhead drop, it's possible that more than two thirds of the crew may have died in a decompression incident, meaning that only the on duty crew would have been up, which would have been in engineering and on the bridge, and the night nurse in sick bay. Less than 8 people for over 50 passengers.
Hearing check:
Gathering his wits about him, Dev begins to hear a sound close-by. He attempts to move towards the sound as safely as he can.
0-G Movement:
Dev begins to flail around and into the hallway, not doing a very good job of moving around. He gets out just in time to see a tall vacc suited figure go around the corner... in the opposite direction as the yelling is coming from.
It sounds like the yelling is coming from about 4 doors down from where Dev is.
Trying to get to the door!
Finally getting the hang of it, Dev makes it to the door and attempts to open it.
"Hey in there...hold on. I am trying to open the door now."
Dev manages to pry the door open without too much difficulty. Inside he finds a floating woman whose mascara has started splotching, with little tears floating all around her, cradling a small black animal.
Scandalous sees a human male who's splashed all over with smeared mustard, cheese dip, and bits of pretzel and crushed potato chips.
Jenni looks at the being before her. She knew him only in passing, as crew like herself, but his words were no less correct. ”You’re right.” She tried to smile but the effort made her head hurt, so she settles on a wry look. ”Let’s go,” she nods, before pushing off gently in the direction of the doorway to her room. ”Be right back,” she says, ducking back into her cabin. She grabs her bug-out bag containing her equipment and then heads off in the direction of the lifeboats.
Yuftro finds that the ship's computer is down, and has taken the internal comm systems with it. The fact the internal comm systems are down is disturbing, as it means there's widespread systems damage. However, he does manage to get to the terminal at the entry to the crew area, and bring it up on emergency power. It can't connect to anything other than the most immediate areas, but the internal chron shows that about 6 hours have passed since the last time Yuftro looked at a chron, which means he and Genni were likely unconscious for 4-5 hours at least.
Something has gone horribly wrong, crew should have done a search for survivors at this point, although it was night shift, so most of the crew would have been in the crew area aft of Yuftro's and Jenni's room. Given the bulkhead drop, it's possible that more than two thirds of the crew may have died in a decompression incident, meaning that only the on duty crew would have been up, which would have been in engineering and on the bridge, and the night nurse in sick bay. Less than 8 people for over 50 passengers.
Malt looks at the screen, then sighs.
"Most of the crew gone, unless they were suited at the time. Speaking of suits, mine is stupidly sitting in Engineering."
He plucks at his body sleeve, "This won't last much more than 10 minutes or so in hard vacuum, so aft is out. If anyone is alive back there, we have to trust them to take care of themselves."
He starts to move forward again, tuning magnetics in the boots to minimal as further gravitic disruptions seem unlikely, then stops and turns to Jenni, "I'm heading for sick bay, rattling any of the occupied cabins on the way just in case. That work for you? If we pass an emergency locker on the way, it might be a good idea to grab a rescue ball or two."
Tam sees the approaching planet and knows it can't be good. Frantically, she begins to head back toward the yelling she heard earlier.
Jenni turns to Malt. "Sounds good. Let's go!"
Dev manages to pry the door open without too much difficulty. Inside he finds a floating woman whose mascara has started splotching, with little tears floating all around her, cradling a small black animal.
Scandalous sees a human male who's splashed all over with smeared mustard, cheese dip, and bits of pretzel and crushed potato chips.
Scandalous looks over from her spinning position at Dev. The sight of the food covered man wasn't helping her queasy stomach. What happened? She looks down at Fru Fru and says, Doesn't Matter. We need to find the crew. Can you help me get some traction?
The pop star telekinetically collects her belongings (smartphone, com dot, drone). She tucks little Fru Fru into the jumpsuit's Little Fru Fru Travel Pouch [smaller]TM[/smaller]
Tam sees the approaching planet and knows it can't be good. Frantically, she begins to head back toward the yelling she heard earlier.
Moving back toward where she heard the yelling, Tam finds a man covered in smeared food floating in a doorway, apparently talking to someone within the room.
He starts to move forward again, tuning magnetics in the boots to minimal as further gravitic disruptions seem unlikely, then stops and turns to Jenni, "I'm heading for sick bay, rattling any of the occupied cabins on the way just in case. That work for you? If we pass an emergency locker on the way, it might be a good idea to grab a rescue ball or two."
The two crewmen begin working their way forward, stopping along the way to pick up six emergency balls. Along the way, they find no one alive. They do find a passenger, an elderly woman, floating in a cloud of blood, quite obviously dead, in an alcove. Her head has a corner shaped imprint in it that matches the metal table bolted to the floor, apparently she hit her head when the gravity spiked and bled out. The blood is dark now, having clotted in the air.
Moving on past the grisly sight, the duo turn the corner, almost to sick bay, when they come across some passengers in the hallway.
Scandalous spins in place, not quite able to maneuver.
"I wish I could, but 0-G was never my strong point. Now if I had a Vacc-suit...anyway, are you hurt? Umm..how are you doing that? How does that stuff just float towards you?"
"I wish I could, but 0-G was never my strong point. Now if I had a Vacc-suit...anyway, are you hurt? Umm..how are you doing that? How does that stuff just float towards you?"
I'll be OK, but poor little Fru Fru needs attention. If I can get to the med bay and grab a med kit, I think, I can help him. We just need a tether... Scandalous tries to move one of her expensive free floating gowns so that each of them can grab one end. I'm a licensed Psi
Tam stops briefly and asks, "Hey, have either of you seen any of the crew?"
Tam stops briefly and asks, "Hey, have either of you seen any of the crew?"
Even as Tam asks, she sees in the hallway beyond the two passengers two crewmembers who look injured, a Droyne (Yuftro, per it's name tag) and a Human (Everson, per her name tag).
Having heard Tam's question, Malt raises an arm and approaches, "Hello. I am crewman Yuftro, and this is crewman Everson. Communications are down, so we have been unable to determine if other crew are functioning."
Coming up to the passengers in the hallway, he passes a rescue bubble to anyone not wearing a vacc suit, "Take one of these, in case of further damage. We are working our way to sick bay, then to the lifeboats."
Noticing that everyone is clustered by an open doorway, Malt leans his head to look in, "Do you need assistance?"
"The ladies pet is badly injured and needs some medical attention. I need to get back to my quarters and gather my things before we move on. I have tools that might be of assistance."
He looks over the group who have gathered and feels slightly better that 2 crewmen are there.
"What are your assignments aboard this vessel?" he asks the crew-members.
"Life Support Technician Omaltdoy'tsart Yuftro, at your service. Feel free to call me Malt. I am also a rated Pilot and Engineer should the need arise."
Malt looks at how everyone is arrayed in the hall, "mmm...It looks like only crewman Everson and I are trained in zero-g operations. Perhaps we should assist Scandalous in getting righted first, and then move as a group."
"Engineer, and he's right. We should move as a unit. It will make it much easier and safer for all of you. Name's Jenni, but my friends call me Glitch." She extends a hand to the others.