.
Dot
.
dot
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The first thing you become aware of is the dull ache in your chest as lungs that haven't drawn breath in months are suddenly forced to life. You feel the full-body throb of your heart lurching and struggling to push the blood around your body once more. You're waking from stasis...
As the grey-blackness of your vision clears a little, you're hit by the odours of damp metal and spilled oil, mingled with the acrid biting stench of the cryogenic liquids you've been depending on since you went in to suspended animation.
Finally what's colloqially known amongst frequent travellers as the 'defrost cycle' completes, and you realise that it's still dark, the usual welcoming lights of a rejuvenation bay are dark. In fact, red flickers at the edge of your vision and as your hearing returns you realise things aren't all right, an emergency beacon of some sort is repeating over and over.
Leaving the pod you almost mis-step as you realise your pod is suspended a couple of feet from the floor by a cargo hook. You can see 3 other chambers in a similar situation to yours, with shapes also clambering out, though the pod nearest the airlock seems to have stuck partway open. You can just make out a shape within.
With the initial surprise worn off, Erik started to panic. "No, no, no. This isn't happening..."
He finished spitting out the vile liquids and clearing his throat. "Hello? Anyone else in here?"
Erik jumped down to the metal floor and started looking for a way out. His first instinct was the air pressure door.
He started looking for a way to open it.
He quickly looked back at the other passengers, "Well, any ideas what happened? or better yet, any ideas how to fix it?"
As he is pulled from his cryo-slumber, Konrad shifts within his pod eyes narrowing as the realisation of what is occurring dawning with a curse;
"Na brodę diabła!"
With a grunt his athletic frame hits the cold floor, followed closely by a lurching gag as he spits up bitter cryo-fluids.
Assessing the situation his eyes meet the other man's, whose mouthed words become clear only when Konrad's ears pop;
"Nie... I haf no idea..."
He moves toward the door, pausing as he becomes aware of a thumping from the pod nearby.
"Vait. There is something amiss here..."
"Vait. There is something amiss here..."
Erik shakes his head trying to determine that he was hearing things correctly. When the man continued to talk with the heavy accent, he moved towards the pod.
"I think you're right. The pods are spitting everyone out but this one malfunctioned."
He yelled at whoever was inside half jokingly, "You sure you want to come out? It's not much better here."
tag?
He then addressed the man with the accent, "Here give me a hand. Maybe we can open this." He then groaned as his muscles, stiff with inactivity for who knows how long, ached.
"What day is this?"
tag?
Rubbing his eyes trying to focus on what is going on. Who's there? What is going on? Malfunctioning?
Once his mind clears and his eyes focuses he moves to give aid with the door Let me give you a hand
Looks around for something to use as a pry bar for the door
You recall storing your holdall in the biometric-sealed cargo compartment of your stasis pod just before you went in to cryosleep. As you glance over the pod, even in the gloom of the emergency lighting you can see the cargo section is missing, ragged edges of metal showing where a power tool of some sort has been employed for the purpose. A quick glance shows the other pods have had the same treatment and are missing their cargo units as well.
The East pressure doors are closed and the control panel next to them is unresponsive, displaying a simple 'LOCKED' message. This is a standard and well known protocol, requiring command-level priviledges to override from a systems console on the bridge or in engineering.
You become aware that you are still dressed in the Cryo-suit you were wearing when you entered the stasis pod, thin black rubber clothing that ends at neck, wrists and ankles, leaving your feet bare on the cold and filthy floor.
You also detect a hissing noise and slight draft around the metal sticking out of the inner airlock doors. Through the dirty window you can just about make out that the outer doors are open, possibly jammed with something that you can't make out in this light. The control panel next to the door flickers between 'LOCK' and 'OPEN'
Noticing that the cargo unit is gone, Erik already starts to miss his 'gadget'. His mind already making plans to make another one even as he tries to open up the last pod that was stuck.
"You in there, can you help out by pushing or something?"
----------------
Jed looks around trying to see if he can find his holdall. He wears a worried expression. Looking up at the man talking.
"Me? Um yeah. What the heck is goin on here? Why is all of the cargo missing?
Moves up to help.
When the others notice the cargo units are missing, Konrad first curses...
"Vater Knochen!"
... then turns his attention to the final, stubborn pod and situation they find themselves in;
"Who knovs vot occured. Theft perhaps?"
:
Squinting in the dim light, the tall neo-prussian moves to the corner of the chamber; locating and opening a small crate.
He returns holding a rusty Magna-Wrench;
"It is old... battery depleted yes? Ve kud still use maybe?"
As Clara's kick thumps home, followed by her muffled cry of pain, Konrad examines her pod;
:
"Verdammt! Artillerie I know. Panzer I know. This I do not... Either of you?"
The pod remains stuck in its current condition.
Erik and Jebediah realise the damaged pod needs either a circuit replaced from one of the other pods, or else the canopy needs smashing to free the occupant.
Konrad determines the Manga-Wrench could be used to smask the canopy, or else dismantle the hyradulics, though this would take much longer...
He is also able to see through the grimy window of the inner airlock door that the outer airlock door is open, in fact Konrad can just about see the remnants of a temporary airlock corridor typically used in docking between ships of dissimilar size. The tattered remnants of a docking corridor sag in the void of the vacuum of space. Evidently something happened to cause the corridor to be rent asunder. Regardless of the cause, it is clear that the inner door has not sealed properly due to the metallic remnants of a previous stasis pod being stuck in the inner door.
Realizing that the pod door may be bypassed with the circuit from another pod, Erik started to frantically yell out orders.
"Quickly, find me some tools and I can probably jury-rig the pod to open by scavenging a circuit from another pod."
He looked at the others, "Tools, people. I need tools!"
Konrad once again offers up the Magma Wrench as he eyes the electronics expert;
Vat vas it Korporal Inzig vud say? He who shouts has little to say...
Calmly the lean man repeats himself;
"Ve hav this... Nothing more yes?"
He nods his shaved head toward the pod;
"Dismantling der hydrauliks vil take too long. Ve should smash it..."
*hisssssssssss*
Realising time is of the essence, Konrad swings the wrench at the pod's canopy with a shouted warning;
"Inkomming!"
:
Erik throws up his hands in exasperation, "If you all can't find me any proper tools to work with then fine. Go ahead. Smash that thing."
He shouted to the person inside, "Move out of the way!"
His internal voice quickly realized his foolish advice. Move out of the way? She's in a pod you dim-wit!"
Clara's caution proves wise as the pod's canopy cracks and shatters under Konrad's assault, sending ragged slivers of plastic lancing in to her skin , but freeing her immediately and giving you slightly more time to focus on the other immediate problem... the impending lack of air.
Meanwhile, Jebediah studies the inner door lock and almost instantly realises that it will be nigh-impossible to override from this side. The pressure door closing is a safety feature to protect the integrity of the ship, without such automated systems a single hull breach would doom a whole ship. The touch screen controls next to the door are locked out and unresponsive to commands for just this reason. The only way to open this door without command-level codes from a system console would be to remove the situation causing it to be locked.
Glancing over to the control panel on the airlock door however shows it at least is still accepting commands, judging from the outputs being displayed.
Erik lets out a sigh of relief, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."
He nods to wrench wielding man with the heavy accent, "Good job."
He continues to look around while he greets the newcomer, "I'm Erik BTW but it's not going to matter unless we figure out a way to stop the air leak."
Erik focuses his effort on the airlock door to see if can get it to shut.
-----------
As he assists Clara down from her broken pod the lean man with the shaven head nods in reply to Erik's introduction;
"Konrad Seiben. Of ze Neo-Prussian Eugenetikorps! Pleased to make your acquaintance Erik..."
At Erik's grave assessment, Konrad snaps to attention with another nod;
"Da. Vhat kan ve do to assizt?"
Erik is one hundred percent certain that the inner airlock door is operating as it should, the problem appears to be a mechanical issue where it simply can't seal.
Examining the metal blocking the door, there's no doubt it's a cryo pod just like the ones you just woke from. Judging by the damage, it was halfway in to the airlock when the outer door breached and caused the inner to slam shut. It looks like there is a mess of rope attached to the cryo pod inside the airlock, and at the end of that, floating almost outside the outer doors... someone in a space suit. They are just drifting, either dead or unconscious, but there's just not enough light to see any more.
Erik is sure the controls will respond if he asks them to close the outer door, but this would leave the floating suit outside the ship. Alternatively and more dangerously, he could override the inner doors and force them to open enough to shove the twisted metal of the cryo tube free and pull the suit in before closing the outer door, but this is risky as the pressure change would remove the remaining atmosphere from the room so everyone had better be holding tight to something. Lastly, you'd have 30 seconds at best before the room itself was vacuum, so would have to work fast to clear the lock and get the doors closed.
There are welded metal hand grips on either side of the air lock door, or else the cryo pods might offer some shelter.
"Clock's ticking people. We're running out of air!"
After explaining the situation almost without pause, the man made up his mind, "I don't like risking my neck more than necessary and I certainly have no love for the corpse floating out there. Heck I don't even know that person."
He then added, "I'm going to close the outer doors so whoever is out there will remain out there."
He shook his head, "Once the doors cut the rope, he'll probably just drift on."
Erik looked at his companions, "Any issue or heartburn? Quickly people, we don't have much time!"
Konrad looks to the others, then nods in agreement at Erik's assessment of the situation;
"Ach. Zhis is zurvival... Kut zhem loose..."
Erik punches in the command to close the external door, and it ponderously swings closed... or at least tries to...
...as they slide across immediately you see one of them is twisted and torn, it looks like ship-grade munitions did the damage, no way that will seal...
the doors clash against each other, and the grinding metal reverberates through the deck you stand on.
Under Erik's hand, the panel for the lock flickers between green and red, the inner door juddering and whining as the twisted metal trapped in it twists...
...there is a and the sound of escaping air as the blockage finally clears and the inner door closes solidly. The blast of air pushes the remnants of the cryo pod out of the airlock, taking the suit with it, drifting off in to the void.
For a moment nothing happens, then the computer's voice crackles over the speakers... and there is the hissing sound of air re-entering the room...
Alert, area is re-pressurising... re-pressurising... re-pressurising... *hiss of stale air entering the room* System error, communication offline, unable to establish connection to core computer
The pressure door control panel flickers from red to green.
Erik timidly waves good bye to whoever drifted out into the void, Hopefully, it was just an empty suit.
He then takes a big gulp of the stale air, "Nothing like a lungful of the stuff to wake you up from cryo eh?"
This was Erik's first time in cryo but he didn't want to seem inexperienced.
The tech looked at the flashing panel, "Now that we have time, let me see if I can establish communications here and let people know about our mishaps."
He looked about, "Anyone know what happened?
-------------
Erik tries a few simple commands on the touchscreen, but it is a dumb terminal slaved to the door with only basic comms back out to the rest of the system. Erik is however able to determine that those basic comms channels are physically blocked in some way. Less a case of someone turning them off, rather something cut them. To re-establish them would take finding the break and repairing it, or simply getting to a terminal the other side of wherever the break happened.
The pressure door panel is now however green, and could be opened whenever you liked.
Konrad shakes his head;
"Neit. It looks like ve may haf been attaked..."
Konrad shakes his head;
"Neit. It looks like ve may haf been attaked..."
Erik nodded, "I think you are right but why?"
He turned to see if there was anything useful left in the pods or room and then asked, "I can get the pressure door opened. Shall we go and find out what happened?"
--------------
Erik is sure the pressure door leads further in to the ship, and at a swift press of the door control, you hear internal locks disengage from the solid door, and it slides upwards in to the ceiling, revealing the dull grey metal of a ship's corridor beyond.
Immediately in front of you on the floor, is another cryo-pod, the lights on it flickering. It appears to have fallen from the cargo hook dangling from the ceiling rail.
The door to the north is a closed security door, typical for cargo haulers where there is no requirement to access the cargo during travel and it can be locked down. The door and its panel appear to be without power.
The door to the east is labelled 'CARGO BAY 2' and the panel is active, but locked.
To the south, the corridor stretches away in to the darkness, there is no emergency lighting, and your surroundings are lit only by the dim glow of the cargo bay door control panels.
|
Clara is ready to get out of the cyro room. Once the door opens she tries to rush through it, only to practically trip over another pod.
"We've got another pod up here!"
Clara can't make out if anyone is in the pod. She glances at Erik and Konrad. "This one seems to be malfunctioning as well...Anyone think they can get it open?"
Erik quickly looks at the display on the pod, "Oh shit. The power appears to be failing on this unit. Whoever is in there will die if the wake cycle is not initiated shortly."
Already feeling bad for the floater they had to let go, he does not ask anyone's opinion before he gets to work to set the wake cycle in motion, "At least we can save this person."
--------------
Konrad brandishes the Magma Wrench once again;
"Ve kud smash our vay in again if needbe?"
Erik quickly runs through the sequence to initiate a quick thaw, and the cryopod hums to life as the display becomes very active, scrolling through hundreds of lines of code and commands as the complicated wake cycle is cycled through.
As you wait for the pod to finish its sequence, it dawns on you that you have not seen Jed since you searched cargo bay 1 a few minutes ago. You see his bare feet first, he appears to have keeled over behind the empty cargo containers you found the magnaWrench in.
His face is contorted in a grimace, with dried froth around his mouth.
His eyes are wide open, but unseeing.
It's uncommon but not unheard of, one of the dangers of long-term cryosleep and being woken on the emergency cycle rather than the more gradual, standard one.
It would take a med scanner to confirm, but likely it was an aneurism. At least it would have been quick.
Just then the power on the pod in the corridor flickers as if about to fail, but then finally beeps readiness, the lid cracking open to release a whiff of chimicals and revealing another person, alive and moving groggily.
"Wha..? the man says as he sits up and looks around obviously very confused. This man looks to be around 5'10", 160 pounds, and fairly lean. Even defrosted his hair seems to be held down and back with some impressive chemicals. His eyes meet Konrad's and then go straight to the magma wrench he is brandishing. "Now look here fella. If this is about that 1% I haven't spent it yet."
Konrad meets the man's confused expression with his own;
"Vhat? Zorry I know neit vhat you speak of..."
The soldat of Neo-Prussia extends his hand to the man, offering him assistance in exiting the pod.
Taking his hand, the man swings his feet around and hops out of the pod. The flaxen-haired man grimaces when his feet hit the icy floor."Ooh! How do you all walk around on this?"
Erik acknowledges the newcomer, "I hope the defrost cycle worked better on you than on the poor sod over there."
He extends his hand, "Erik, by the way."
He then frowns as he realizes that the north door would not be opened without any power but he started working on bypassing the mechanism for the east door.
"Give me a second and I'll get this opened..."
-----------
Konrad gives a precise nod of his shaved head toward the newcome, before reciting his previous introduction verbatim;
"Konrad Seiben. Soldat of ze Neo-Prussian Eugenetikorps! Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Daniel faces the bald man about to express gratitude when Clara speaks up and offers a hand. Immediately his attention is undivided. "Why, hello there," he tilts is head and says warmly, the grimace long gone. "My name is Daniel. It is an absolute pleasure." He takes Clara's hand, bends down and gives it a peck. "Now, what has you so distressed?"