Posted: Thu Oct 19, 2017 4:25 pm
I give an "all clear" signal to my companions.
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The Sister does not resist the repair, and although she is unsteady on her feet, she follows with sullen docility as you pass through the station's outlock, one by one.
The interior is...
Darth Rabbitt:You are standing on a small flight deck with several cramped crew stations. Through the viewports, you see that whatever vessel you are on is inside a truly vast hangar, and on either side you see other identical vessels docked.
Your EnviroSuits have been replaced by much frumpier space suits, with no branding at all. Similarly, your companion's SpaceBall has become a generic space ball.
While the others help the guard with his(?) ruptured suit, you slowly float your force-disk towards the glittering multicolored trove that beckons you from beyond the deadly gas. The gritty swirls thin, then part revealing...
You are standing on a small flight deck with several cramped crew stations. Through the viewports, you see that whatever vessel you are on is inside a truly vast hangar, and on either side you see other identical vessels docked.
Your force-disk is gone. Instead, you are standing inside some sort of half-inflated transparent balloon. There is no sign of your companions or their prisoner.
Your arms are still fleshy, with only the sleeves of a grey jumpsuit to cover them.Darth Rabbitt wrote:I look down at my arms, to see if they are mechanical again.
Thaluikhain:"I-I dunno," stammers your prisoner. "I've not seen any of this place before, not since that elevator where the gravity gave out."
You realize that you are floating again, just like in the control room before the transition. It feels so completely normal that you didn't notice at first.
"Richards might've, but he's gone. Afaik, he just saw you were heading this way and we came here to cut you off."
The whole flight deck feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, but one of the stations in particular has controls that you think you could do something with.
You are carrying a structural-brace-club, an air filter mask, a grenade (unbranded), a maser rifle (unbranded), and some scavenged circuit boards.
While you are being 'ware, one of the control setups seems oddly familiar.
Darth Rabbitt:The controls are dark, lifeless, unpowered. Whatever their function—and you can feel that function on the tip of your tongue, in the muscle memory of your hands—they'll need juice first.
"Are you going to land us?" asks your prisoner. "That's what the Landers say. They woke you all up to fulfill their craziness, even though you were past your beebee. Richards and the other councilors don't want that. They're fat and happy already, a big change could be real bad for them."
The other ships appear dark and identical, except for designation. Each has a large number painted on their hull, underlined by what you guess is the vessel's callsign. On one side of you is #2, apparently called Intrepid; on the other is #4, apparently called Falcon.
Darth Rabbitt:Between you, you find both a power distribution board and also a stack of manuals for the DS-580 Colonial Transport Carrier that offer a staggering amount of info on dry technical properties and incredibly long procedural protocols for doing things.
Your other companion roams around, scavenging miscellaneous materials.
"Shit, I dunno," says your prisoner. "If you didn't screw up in one of a thousand tiny ways and just crash, I guess it's anarchy. The council loses its credibility, the Landers try to take over. Whoever wins, we all have to till the soil or something, scratch a living off the surface."
The ship is modestly-sized for a ship, but it's still pretty big compared to you, and searching it is a lot of ground. A quick pass on just the flight deck turns up a medical pack, a weapons locker, a cache of ration packs, and two vending machines full of snacks and drinks. You could probably turn up more with a longer search, or by going to the lower decks.
Darth Rabbitt:The prisoner shrugs. "When the first council aborted the landing, way back when, landing crew didn't get their wake-up call. You all stayed in your cans for a lot longer than you were supposed to. Nobody knew what the effects would be. When the Landers opened the pods, everyone assumed you'd be all sick and floppy, but all the reports that came back said you were kicking ass. I sure haven't seen anything wrong with you."
The power board cooperates, and the lights start to come on, first the white overheads, then one console at a time, flickering with green, yellow, and red indicators.
The weapons locker contains a brace of maser rifles, very similar to the one you're already carrying, as well as spare clips, knives, and a couple of electroshock batons. The medical pack is very extensive, with bandages, chest seals, IV fluids and tubing, burn dressings, dermal sprays, surgical blades, and much more. In particular, there are what seem like thousands of tiny beads of medicine (sorted in a compartmented tray) which can be taken orally or administered by one of the pack's hypos. Painkillers, epinephrine, antibiotics, expectorants, diuretics, anti-diuretics, it's a cornucopia.
While you're examining your spoils, the lights start to come on, first the white overheads, then one console at a time, flickering with green, yellow, and red indicators.
Darth Rabbitt:"I don't understand a lot of what you said there. Germ-men? Whirled War? The year's 2158, or so the clocks say."
The navigator's station is easy to find, and transferring general control from the bridge is almost reflexive. Sparks flash in your mind, memories that don't quite form. You feel as though you have done this many times before.
Immediately, much of the board goes red, and alerts sound. It appears that you have missed the optimal deceleration window, and are about a day – two at most – from the end of the effective window. If the braking procedures aren't engaged before then, you won't be able to slow down enough to be captured by your destination's gravity. The ship – Bounty – will drift off into interstellar space.
The nav logs trace the Bounty's voyage for you. It did originate on Earth, almost 123 years ago. The destination is a planet in orbit around a red dwarf whose coordinates are familiar to you – Barnard's Star.
The medpack is more of a backpack, but you sling it on and it sits comfortably, its weight distributed well. You drift by the consoles, and most look vaguely familiar, but then your eyes fall on one that is incredibly familiar. It's not identical to the controls on the Ripper's Red Lance, but it is somehow the same. Your fingers twitch toward it involuntarily before you catch yourself.
An annoying rythmic buzz starts to come from one of the stations in a different bank, some sort of alert. The console's lights have turned mostly red.