The other ship doesn't respond to the IFF. In fact, the other ship reads as all but dead, other than some power readings from the cargo section and the comm beacon.
"Hmm, this is weird. Their IFF is not functioning..looks like a dead ship there. Let me take a look at the sensors and see if there is anyone home!"
Sensors:
Sensors don't detect any life forms on board.
As Dev activates his sensors, the homing beacon shuts off. Moments later a small, four-legged robot, about the size of a cat skitters to the edge of one of the pinnace bays. It waves its forelegs (menacingly?) in the direction of the ship. It has a weapons array mounted on it's backside, but it appears to be devoid of weaponry, instead functioning more as a sensor array.
"Hello clever people! Welcome to Planet EAVE! You first survivors ever to EAVElandia! Mind tiny quakes. Don't touch the wires! Hi!" it calls out in a mechanical, if overly enthusiastic voice.
Oh how cute! Scandalous sees the small bot and rushes over to hit the Open Bay Door button. The hiss of hydraulics signals the sliding bay door's opening. She goes to the edge, and thinks better of going all the way outside. The pop star sits down and let's her long legs dangle over the bay door's lip.
The holo recorder swings in for a shot of EAVE. Hi there little bot bot. Who might you be?
Tam made sure her pistol is within easy reach, uncomfortable with being lured to this planet. She cautiously made her way to the door and looked out. Tam paused and smiled, "EAVE learn any new knife tricks?"
The Darrian maneuvered her way outside and asked, "I hope you can tell us what is going on here."
Warren says "I can treat all of our wounds. I'll need some help with my own. Let me have a look at everyone and I'll start with the most wounded first. Once we are through there we can take stock of what we have."
The camera changes focus to Tam. Our rescuer. I for one would like to thank you. Scandalous smiles at her. Now that I know that the cute little bot bot is Eave...Tell me your's
The weapons array trains on the holodrone, following it around. "EAVE is EAVE. and this is the Major!". the little white and purple bot says, then pauses for a few moments. "Major is shy with new people. Also doesn't have his own vocoder.
"How you know EAVE knows knife tricks?. The bot asks suddenly, suspiciously. "EAVE pretty sure giant spinny death tops do battle in the sky and disrupt travel. Not positive. Only have twelve years to go by. Not very large data set. But when disks nearly touch, the sky screams and the world trembles. And then there are more ships. Sometimes. Not always. Lots crash, though.
Tam arched her right eyebrow as she considered Scandalous's question. She hesitated a second and replied, "You may call me Nanier Tam."
"How you know EAVE knows knife tricks?. The bot asks suddenly, suspiciously.
Tam hesitantly answered, "Because I taught you a few."
Scandalous let's the old friends talk. She goes back inside to Dr Connery. Let me set up a work station for you
"Tam?" The robot stands still for a moment. "Nanier Rhuyl Tam! Nanier has gotten so... old! EAVE sometimes forgets the aging thing. Aside from near death experience, how Nanier doing? Is EAVE confirmed dead? MIA? [CLASSIFIED]!? What Rank is Nanier now?"
The little bot asks, skittering to and fro with excitement, the weapon's array wagging - you're fairly certain it's wagging, were it not for the far-too-long pauses in it training in each individual's general direction.
"Old? I think your sensors are malfunctioning," Tam rebutted playfully. She considered for a moment and continued vaguely not wanting to reveal her affiliation with Special Arm to the other castaways, "All things considered I'm fine but I have no rank I left the service 8 years ago."
Jenni listens to the conversation intently, being curious about the robot. It seems oddly familiar, somehow.
"Ah, EAVE gets it! Wink Wink! Retired!" EAVE bobs her head, "The Major is still probably The Major, then!" EAVE shares, "Left service, sort of, though. Again." She skitters up to the very edge of the landing. "Ship may be salvageable. EAVE can't figure out warp drives. Fixed everything she could in Phoenix. Doesn't have fuel. Doesn't have power. Doesn't have pilot. Has a full crew, though! Maybe. EAVE isn't certain. Come in. Make self at home. Don't touch wires." EAVE announces, before disappearing back into the bulk of the ship.
Malt looks over to Tam, "I take it you have worked with this 'Eave' before. Do you trust it? It sounds like it may be malfunctioning."
Tam shrugged her shoulders, "Yes, she's always been a little quirky. Best be on our guard nevertheless." She followed EAVE into the ship, "I love what you've done with the place."
The ship is an old Kestral ship that's been refitted.
The Kestral's were a light cargo frigate that was popular about 500 years ago. They were top of the line at the time. They had two pinnace/fighter bays for escort craft. They were known for being a nice mix of speed vs armor vs cargo capacity. However, their fixed mount weapons and their low fuel capacity made them hard to keep up with the fleet. Their jump drives were also fairly pedestrian.
The ship is offline, with nothing lit up inside except the occassional light strip hanging loose from the ceiling. Ship's Interior
As the survivors realize they are safely on a planet and have lived, Warren moves between them and uses his medkit on each of them.
"This is a good place to look at you all before we leave the safety of the ship. Hopefully I can help with some of your wounds." Warren says as he tends to everyone.
Dev starts poking around the ship, prying into the engines and mechanicals.
Engineer:
J-Drive:
Mechanical:
Jenni looks over the ship, trying to discern if it can be made spaceworthy.
"EAVE had to count days by claw at first. Took a bit to get solar panels up." she says, indicating the scuffs along the hallway near the floor. "Then didn't stop, in case power went out. EAVE been here loooong time. Everyone else dumb and land far away. Lucky EAVE had enough power to call you down this time. Lots of escape pods went into EAVE's gas giant. Some landed far away. EAVE might have food if hungry. Wildlife eats." she says, leading the way to her 'dining room' first. "Unranked Nanier able to call for medical ship?" she asks, expecting the answer to be no.
Warren fixes up his own injuries first, he regains (11-8 = 3 - 2 (penalty for self repair) = 1 Endurance. Being positive on all 3 stats, he has no penalties for injury.
Warren then performs first aid on Scandalous, who regains (13-8) = 5 points to her stats.
Warren then performs first aid on Tam, but is unable to help her since her physiology is different from what he is used to.
Vorn regains 4 stat, and Glitch regains 2.
Malt regains only 2, because of his alien physiology and Warren's being unused to working on it.
Dev is confused by the power system, he's not sure what is with this ship, the power core seems to be twice as big as anything he's ever seen before, and there's almost no fuel tank on the ship, only a few tons worth of reservoir.
For the Jump-Drive, it looks like the original J-Drive has been replaced with a more up to date and powerful J-Drive than the original, but without power to the ship, Dev can't tell what shape it's in.
Without power, it's hard to tell, but it looks like the mechanical portions of the ship have been receiving decent upkeep. Doors greased, hydraulics kept topped off and cleaned. It could do with a bit more spit and polish, but it's not in bad shape mechanically.
Without power, it's hard to tell much more.
Tam shakes her head from side to side, "Nope, the ships systems weren't working. If you don't mind I'll poke around your ship a bit. She catches up with Dev and asked, "Mind if I tag along?
Seeing Devs frustration with the power plant of the ship Tam starts paying attention and makes some suggestions.
Tam pokes around the power system, and comes to a startling discovery. The entire power plant is totally non-standard. Someone ripped out the storage tanks and the old power plant and replaced it with a massive fission plant, rather than a fusion reactor.
The advantage of a fission plant is that it produces power continuously for about a year on a single set of fissionable material. The downside is the fissionable material is generally more expensive than the water used for fusion, and bulkier.
Of course, a fission reactor doesn't need to stop to refuel, meaning the ship can move significantly faster than a traditional ship. A traditional ship has to refuel after each hyperspace jump. A fission powered ship can make a 3 sector jump, recharge the jump engines, and an hour later jump again.
The scouts have x-courier ships that use such drives to get messages across the Imperium in half the time it normally takes.
Tam whistles softly and wondered, What other secrets do you hold." She remarked to Dev, "Take another look, this old bucket of bolts has been refitted with a fission power plant." She raised a quizzical eyebrow, "Do you think you can get her working."
"EAVE has tried. Oh. That. No, EAVE doesn't touch what she can't afford. EAVE is master of deception! Can fix anything. But hasn't had time to fix jump drive." she shares. "Another nearby ship, can pull parts from if needed, but heavy. Ha! Ship heavy -and- parts heavy." she continues skittering down the hall, then stops. "Want see crew quarters?" she asks at one of the doorways leading into the center of the ship, then gets quieter, turning around to look directly at the others. "Sleeping people." she announces, lifting one leg to cover where her mouth should be, before making a shushing noise and skittering to the edge of the cargo hold.
Looking in the cargo hold, there are escape pods and cryo-tubes stacked around the hold. Wires lead to the escape pods, keeping them functioning in cold sleep mode. They are widely varied, some looking like they might be centuries old. The cryo-tubes are all filled with gas and stacked about, not needing electricity while in standby status. There are multiple styles, and many seem old, very old.
Dev is surprised when Tam tells him what the powerplant for this ship is.
"Fission power...wow. Have not seen a fission powerplant since my time with the scouts and being shuttled around in an x-courier. My specialty is mostly mechanical with a little J-Drive background. Might need some help getting power back to this beast."
Scandalous thanks Doctor Connery for his patch up job. She glances out the open bay door behind him and asks for some anti-anxiety medication as well.
The pop star helps the doctor administer to the other survivors. It gives her an opportunity for some small talk, getting their names and a little about themselves for her documentary. It was an interesting group she thought and should make survival much easier.
Making her way to the Kestral, The singer first finds a state room to place Little Fru Fru so that her pet can rest comfortably and recuperate.
Scandalous , once returning to the small ship, collects the survival rations from the pinnace and brings them to the larger ships mess. She searches the area for any additional food and resources, as the others go about their personal expertise in evaluating the viability of the ship. Scandalous figured that making lunch for everyone and having them eat together would be a great opportunity to discuss their current situation.
She tried her best to work her culinary talents to create as tasty a meal as she could, without the help of powered appliances. Scandalous sets the table and calls out Lunch is ready. Once they finish their evaluation.
The larger ship has no food in the shelves at all. Nor does it have any water in the water tank.
"Who are they?" Tam asked EAVE about the cryo-tubes. After the tour she suggested, "Food sounds good, plus we can all discuss our plight and resources."
"Is EAVE's crew. Sort of a collection. Because they can't do anything until they wake up and EAVE can't wake them up. Probably also couldn't feed them. And they'd still sleep a third of the day anyway. So EAVE leaves them asleep."
Jenni begins to carefully examine every aspect of the vessel, trying to determine spaceworthiness.
EDIT: Forgot Engineer (J-Drive).
Dev is surprised when Tam tells him what the powerplant for this ship is.
"Fission power...wow. Have not seen a fission powerplant since my time with the scouts and being shuttled around in an x-courier. My specialty is mostly mechanical with a little J-Drive background. Might need some help getting power back to this beast."
"Power I might be able to help you with," Jenni says, rolling up her sleeves.
"Well let's start there then. Luck I retrieved my tools from the ship. Ok, let's see if we can power this beast up!"
Engineering (Power):
The fission drive's fission pile is completely drained and unusable. New fissionables will need to be procured before the ship's power system can be used. It seems to be intact and functional, although it needs maintenance.
Between them, Dev and Glitch remember that the Pinnace can supply power to the ship to work on the other systems and get some idea of how bad a shape the ship is in.
Running out the emergency coils from the Pinnace, they plug it into the docking port of the Phoenix and throw the switches.
Inside the ship, lights begin to come on, consoles begin to light up, and wires begin to short and spark. The central computer comes up on line, fires spring up in walls here and there, and conduits burst into sparks as they short and melt under full power.
After about 5 minutes, the sparking dies down, and the fires are suppressed by the fire suppression system.
The ship's computer comes to life slowly but does come to life.
The ship's computer begins to report diagnostic information :
Comms : Functional
Computer : Functional : MULTIPLE WARNINGS
Jump-Drive : OFFLINE : MULTIPLE ERRORS
Maneuver-Drive : OFFLINE : MULTIPLE ERRORS
Power System : OFFLINE : MULTIPLE ERRORS
Airlock A : Functional
Airlock B : ERROR : OPEN
Airlock C : Functional
Airlock D : Fucntional
Loading Ramp : Functional
Life Support : OFFLINE : MULTIPLE ERRORS
Sensors : Functional : MULTIPLE WARNINGS
Flight Control Systems : UNKNOWN
Parasite Craft 1a : UNKNOWN
Parasite Craft 2a : UNKNOWN
Parasite Craft 1b : UNKNOWN
Parasite Craft 2b : UNKNOWN
Poking around, Glitch finds that the ship's electronics are actually in pretty good condition. Someones been maintaining them, and while there were a lot of fires and shorts when they were hit with full power (something the solar panels couldn't provide), the system routed around the damage automatically and the fire suppression system kicked in without issue.
The fission plant needs routine maintenance, hydraulic fluid replacement, and fission materials. The first two are doable, the third will be difficult.
The computer is up and running, and has some memory errors and some peripherals that are blown, but the core is working without incident. It could use a complete overhaul, but it will continue working as it is without too many issues for a few years. Someone has been maintaining it as well.
The ship needs a lot of niggling repairs all over the place, but the major repairs are the jump and meanuever drives, the power plant, and life support. It seems structurally sound.
The jump drive is reporting multiple failures and burned out components, most likely from the same phenomenon that pulled the Verdant Dawn out of hyperspace far from where it should have been.
As the group gathers to the lunch table, Scandalous greets them with a smile and small talk. Hoping to make everyone feel comfortable and important, She hands everyone a survival ration water packet. She says, Everyone. Let's share a toast. To surviving.
As they eat, Scandalous listens to the more technical people explain everything that needs to be fixed. She asks EAVE about the people in the hold, and whether they are alive.She chimes in during a lull. If fission material is what we need to get out of here, then we should use the Pinnace to do some shopping in the debris ring.
The immediate response from EAVE is interest and curiosity, followed by pure panic, as she begins skittering all over, trying and failing to figure out to put out the fires... then the systems designed to do so kick in and she calms down, significantly.
"OOoh." she announces when the main computer comes online. "Should see if they stored confidential datasets on." but as everyone heads for meal time, she skitters after them. She sits at the head of the table (it was her table), and saves learning new gossip for later. "They're EAVE's collection. And her crew! They sleep. They from all the crashes EAVE could find. Collects and moves to safe place. Unsafe to wake up. Could cause accident and hurt or kill. Also, don't know if viable food sources on planet; could be toxic or incite allergic reaction. So EAVE waits for medical ship. OOh, OOh. EAVE had not considered rare elements in debris field! Is ship equipped for hunter-gather methodologies?"
Warren smiles at Scandalous as she passes out food and water. "Thank you. We'll have to see if we can improve on our meals and supplement with something local." He then takes his seat at the table and waits for the others to sit.
When the sleeping crew is mentioned Warren responds. "I can take a look at them and see what their status is. I may or may not be able to figure out the pods we will have to see. That reminds me we should probably all share what skills we have and what resources we bring. My name is Warren Connery. In a previous life I was a researcher and doctor. I have have some skill in medicine, diplomacy, archeology, computers, electronics, comms, biology, history, sensors and I can use a vacc suit. As to what gear I have, a Combination Analysis Unit, a radio transceiver with a 500 km range, a computer, medkit, an enviromenal suit and my scout drone. The two most important pieces are the Analysis Unit and the drone. The drone I have used to locate plants and animals and do some basic analysis and the Analysis unit will tell me what things are made of. I should be able to find us edible plants and animals if there are any." He takes a bit of the ration bar and adds "And hopefully soon."
"Thank you, Doctor"
His injuries somewhat alleviated, Malt tours the ship, quietly reviewing the systems and listening in on comm chatter.
Fission Plant is going to be an issue, but there are more immediate needs.
Malt makes his way to the vehicle bay. while interested in the presence or lack of vehicles, he is more interested in the refueling systems. While the ship itself doesn't need refined fuel, the small craft do, so Malt is checking to see if the Kestrel has fuel purification machinery.
The ship doesn't have purification systems. It does have 5 tons for fuel tanks, but the tanks have long since evaporated.
"As I said, I'm Jenni, but my friends call me Glitch. I'm pretty handy with a pair of wire cutters or a torque wrench, and I can even fly this bird in a pinch, though I wouldn't want to go threading the needle. The ship seems to be generally spaceworthy, if we can get her off the ground. There's the rub."
Names Dev Vorn. Been around spaceships for most of my career, what with the scouts, navy and a stint on a free trader. A good mechanic and a fair hand at jump drive engineering. I have piloted a number of different ships, and can plot a jump as well as any, I suppose. Anything else you may want to know just ask...I might even tell you!"
This last is said with a lopsided grin.
Dev, can you modify the sensors on the Pinnace to cut through some of the nebular static?
"EAVE has supplemental maybe-food. Feral monsters eat it, so maybe safe. Grows it in her garden. As for EAVE, EAVE is master of deception. Is best at everything. Good at telling others what to do, good at hiding, can slice and dice and make julienne starchsticks. Also very good at finding things. EAVE is the best finder." EAVE responds with the same excitement she reserved for most of her speech. "EAVE can also show you other ship. May be better. EAVE keeps more crew there. Doesn't use fission, but EAVE mostly lives here, because EAVE's Phoenix sound better than EAVE's Rose."
Doctor Connery, Is there a way you can boost our comm signals to cut through the nebular static as well? It may save a life when we start raiding the debris field.