Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
Well, worst case scenario, you get to yell "I goddamn told you so" at us.
Engine Bells and Shotgun Shells (hard sci-fi quests)
- Thread starter 4WheelSword
- Start date
- Original
-but I'm so bored with that!
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
What's the worst outcome you can think of?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't know, whatever went wrong, the original base obviously had enough time to GTFO. I'm betting we'll have enough time to bug out and stay ahead of Whatever long enough to get the shuttle back.
Also, IC, I want the captain to stop riding my goddamn ass for wanting to join Starfleet instead of the Royal Manticoran Navy.
Is it an election year?
They scrammed as fast as they could, while shouting to shut the door. If it were an organized evacuation they would have taken two trips so they wouldn't have needed to attempt a dangerous combat landing in atmosphere. Heck, I don't think we even know if everybody made it out of the base. We had serious trouble just casually riding the ATV to the crash site.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Perfect. A+, quote of the thread.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Outpost Eta: In which a Captain wishes she was Janeway and a Lieutenant wishes he was Picard.
E73S
I've updated my journal.
- Location
- Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The captain continuing to ride Westcott, ignoring caution, and ending up gettin' a helluva lot more of the crew killed. If Westcott cacks and prevents that, it ain't worst.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
This probably wont happen.
probably.
Also that feel when you need to write like 3k words for the next update but you know you're not gonna.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
Looks like I am so the next update might have to wait because holy shit it's 2am, whoops (I'm 2k words in and there's still a bunch to do)
Episode 1 Part 9: Data analysis
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
3400 words later...
Vote Details:
- 7 votes for Of course, analysis - @hcvquizibo @kinigget @Vyslanté @Night_stalker @Mr Apollo @Crazy Tom @E73S
- 1 votes for Of course, crash site - @pspan
- 1 votes for quick assessment - @Nevill
- 1 votes for recon on return - @veekie
"Captain, if you're trying to insinuate that I'm somehow shirking my duty-" His indignation was almost audible.
"No, Lieutenant, simply an observation." I pressed a hand against my forehead and bit back a sigh. Wescott had apparently become oversensitive to criticism since we'd argued.
"I- Very well." Wondering idly if he looked as embarrassed as he sounded, I opened the view of the planet below on my console's display while he found the words for a more appropriate response. "If you think that would be a better use of Mcpherson's time, then i'll gladly release him too it but perhaps we could wait until the sun rises?"
I frowned and waved at the comms officer - what was his name, Lopez? Covering the headsets microphone I hissed "When's sunrise for him?" at him.
"Five hours, Ma'am" I nodded him my thanks.
"You've got six hours, Wescott, and then I want that bird in the air." The planet span faster than I'd really thought about.
"Understood, Captain. We'll have the shuttle doing low passes in the morning. Was there anything else?"
"No, Mr. Wescott, I told you I'd give you free reign, and I meant it." I paused, smiling momentarily to myself. "Mostly, at least. Vancouver actual signing off."
I snatched the headset off and almost threw it at the comms console. She'd promised me my initiative, she'd agreed that I would be able to make my own decisions on this mission. And now, not even a day had passed, and already she was getting involved and sticking her nose in where she herself had said it didn't belong.
And to make matters worse she wasn't just giving orders where she'd agreed not too. She was ignoring the facts on the ground, ignoring the fact that she didn't even know the facts. If I thought about it - and I was trying not to - given the fact that we didn't even know what had forced the evacuation of the William Dampier's crew, separating any of us from our shuttle was putting us all in danger. Whatever had done that to the dead was presumably still out there. Unless it was aliens. Maybe it had been alien invaders, coming from the unknown reaches of deep space to steal our children and eat our women. They could have shot down the Dampier with their plasmatic cannons or abducted the few crewmen who didn't try to escape on the crashed shuttle with their tractor beams. They would surely have left long before we'd arrived.
I smirked, stifling a chuckle. However anxious I was about finding out what had actually happened, whatever hidden truth there was to find out, it certainly wasn't going to be the plot of the pulp novella I'd bought when I'd left the ship on leave for the first time. I wouldn't call myself disappointed that that wasn't the case, it would likely prove to be a damn sight safer than enemy, whatever it was. But proving the existence of alien life, however hostile it was, would certainly be something of a coup.
Shaking myself back into action I realised I needed some kind of plan. The one I'd been forming had been simple; Give three of the team six hours off-duty to rest, then send them back to the crash site, the rest of us beginning analysis of the data drives we'd recovered. Of course, with the new taskings from the Captain, everything had to change.
"Murphy, Mcpherson!" I shouted. The rest of the team had kindly given me a little privacy while I reported to the Captain. Not that it had ended up being much of a report, more like an excuse for her to harangue me for not being the right kind of XO. Perhaps if they'd taught her a little more about how to lead people outside of combat we'd be in a better situation than if i'd come out of the same schools that she did.
Murphy's head appeared around the door, thankfully breaking that particular chain of thought.
"You called, Boss?" I wouldn't call the look I gave him a glare, but it certainly wasn't the nicest. "You called, Lieutenant?" his grin could only be described as cheesy.
"Is Mcpherson with you?"
"Nah, he headed out." Murphy shrugged "Said he wanted to check over his baby."
"He's obsessed." I sighed. Mcpherson had barely come away from the shuttle since we landed, claiming that the dust was damaging her turbine's even when there was no wind. He'd spent a lot of his time walking around her, trudging through the dust on his own. It was a little worrying. "Well, get him in. You've got four hours to get rested and then you've got a new tasking."
"Just us? Without an officer present?"
"Just because we're away from the Captain, it doesn't mean you can be disrespectful." He raised his hands in something approaching an apology. I had yet to work out which of us was more glad to be out from under her for a little while, him or me. I was still fairly confident it was me. "Yes, just the two of you. She wants you to take the shuttle and do a low altitude survey of the abandoned outpost."
"And leave you here?"
"We've got plenty to be getting on with, Murphy, don't you worry about us. But if we're going to keep her sweet, then we're going to need those pictures."
"Aye, Lieutenant, pictures to keep the Captain happy. And thermals as well?" He was grinning again.
"As much as you can get, Murphy. Now go and get that damn pilot, and get some rest. You're up in-" I checked my wristwatch and frowned "five and a half hours."
"Roger that, Lieutenant." He disappeared almost as fast as he'd appeared and barely a minute later I heard the inner door of the airlock cycling open. I leaned on the console and breathed deeply for a few minutes, enjoying the cold bottled air our outpost was filled with. I wondered if the abandoned one still had an atmosphere, or if the evacuating crew had left its airlock open in their hurried escape. I couldn't believe they would have had time to cycle through it properly if they were in enough of a hurry to abandon everything else.
Stretching I walked through to the habitation section. The rest of the team, Kottindour, Robinson and Hallman, were stretched out across their bunks comfortably, chatting amongst themselves. All three heads snapped up as I walked in and suddenly the room went quiet. Even out here they didn't want to talk openly in front of an officer. Was it better that they didn't? Was it more respectful of my authority, or did they simply fear what my rank pins represented?
"Kottindour, Hallman, you're off watch for four, get some sleep. Robinson, you're with me." While most of the team slept, we could at least make a start on some of what we'd picked up. Robinson jumped to her feet.
"Aye, lieutenant." She followed as I walked back into the other module. Our outpost was so small it almost hadn't been worth stepping through to disturb them, but I figured it was best to give orders in person, if I could.
I dropped the cables I was holding and slumped against the wall. More than four hours work and we'd gotten nowhere. Several of the drives from the ship's main computer were so damaged that they'd cracked inside their crash casings, an impressive occurrence given that were designed to resist weapons fire, let alone the g-forces of anything that had happened to them. Perhaps they were simply faulty, or were not as well protected as the manufacturer's had promised. Something to report, maybe, once we'd returned home.
Others had burned out when the power system went on the Dampier, their data perhaps only recoverable with tools that we certainly didn't have at our disposal. We'd keep them, of course, and deliver them to the service's best analysts. They might have a little more luck than we were having with rudimentary systems and as much computing power as we could rig together our of what the hab's were built with.
"What do we have left?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. The work has been surprisingly tiring, with intense focus needed as we stripped open damaged drive casings and tried to access their much needed data.
Robinson was sat on the other side of the narrow module, a pile of data drives scattered across the floor next to her. She fumbled through them, scanning the neat little labels we'd added in full confidence when we'd started our work, dredging what remained of the once considerable pile.
"Uh… the Captain's, the comm logs I pulled, and one of the core drives. Not much, I'm afraid." She looked irritable, smooth skin creased by a frown and several strands of her once neatly tied hair spraying out behind her ears. I'd heard several of the junior crew talking about how attractive she was and I believed them. But perhaps not when she was frustrated with uncooperative technology.
"Pass me the Captain's drive, maybe we'll get somewhere with that." She handed over the slim little black cased computer drive with it's blindingly brightly chromed access ports. I plucked the bundle of cables i'd thrown down in irritation off the floor and went back to work, fitting the data jacks into the right ports before finally, almost reverently, pushing the power button.
We grinned at each other at the happy little beep and whir that the drive emitted. I set it down carefully on the floor and took a deep breath. It seemed we'd finally caught some good luck.
Robinson was on her feet long before I was, bouncing up with an overly energetic spring. It was a vicious comparison to me hauling myself up. Every muscle in my legs ached from sitting on them for too long, not to mention my knees. We weren't mentioning my knees.
"Maybe this one will work…" I said almost to myself as we both stood watching the drive chug through its boot-up sequence. Even if it was perfectly fine externally, it had still suffered a horrendously high-G impact and who knew what might have happened inside the casing.
"Don't jinx it, Lieutenant."
"I'd touch wood, but we don't seem to have any." She smiled, showing a row of shiny white teeth. The computer beeped, grabbing our attention. It had picked a good moment.
I tapped through the opening checks and eventually hit a login screen, with what must have been the Captain's initial and surname - KJitender, a name I was sure I'd heard before - already entered. I hit a button on the keyboard and pulled my data-stick from a breast pocket. Robinson eyed me doubtfully as I pressed it against a sensor and almost jumped out of her skin when the screen flashed 'login accepted - 2nd Lieutenant D Wescott' in block letters.
"Officer's secret" I said, grinning. It was hardly a secret, that we could access any computer aboard one of His Majesty's ships. We simply weren't supposed to do it unless there was a pressing need and so it was a privilege rarely used.
The screen seemed exactly as it should have been, but everything was a little shifted. Letters were transposed or missing on most of the files listed on the main screen and several icons were either the wrong colour or entirely distorted. It was more than a little worrying.
"Maybe the files will be a little better?" Robinson said. She didn't sound convinced and neither was I. I was getting that horrible creeping feeling that we'd been set up for an even deeper disappointment.
"Maybe" I wasn't going to say much else. We were both professionals.
We ran through several back-doored directories at speed. I knew asking the communications specialist to tag along would be a good idea, she was data mining almost faster than I'd been able to log into the drive.
"Anything specific you want?" She was dragging up window after twisted window, half of them with almost unintelligible names plastered across them. "We're pretty damn lucky we've got this far to be honest, something's got awful screwed up in there." She nodded sideways at the drive still whirring away happily on the floor.
"Logs might be a good place to start."
"Roger that LT." Several screens closed and others opened in their place. "Oooo-kay. I think I can get the last couple in some sort of semi-usable format. Want audio or text?"
"Audio, it can't be that bad."
"Sure it can't, it's not like the ship crashed or anything." The sarcasm in her tone was almost palpable. It was like being slapped by something soft. Or maybe that was the tiredness talking. "D'you want the last, or the penultimate?"
"Might as well have the last first." It might cushion the blow, having it come straight away. My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden distortion from the computer's speakers. The quality was exceedingly poor, and cut in and out with an almost worrying regularity. Maybe the drive was cracked and we just got lucky.
"-ptian Kennedy Jitender. I don't --- this but perhaps it will assuage my guilt. I --- surface and it's my responsibility that --- even now diving into the atmosphere to rescue --- pilot to complete his task without distraction. Perhaps --- last log. Captain Jitender, signing off."
Robinson paused the recording before it could start again. We stood in silence for at least a minute, perhaps both os us realising that we'd just head the last words of the Dampier's Captain. He sounded strong, resolute, even in the face of adversity. As much as it horrified me, it was an honour to hear it.
"Well that was worrying." She said eventually, breaking the silence.
"You have a way with words."
"You're a flatterer, Lieutenant." Was I? I wasn't trying to be. "Here's the penultimate recording."
"This is the log of Captain Kennedy Jiten--- outpost on the surface has declared a mayday --- that it was just bad weather. We all did. No-one --- and yet it has proven to be very much more than --- we return I expect to face a board for my actions. I will gladly --- hope that I can save as much of my crew as possible. --- Jitender, signing off"
"That was so much more comforting." I couldn't help but join in the morbidity after hearing that. It seemed like the man had resigned himself to whatever fate the universe had for him just so long as he could bring his crew back alive. It wasn't a situation i'd been in, it wasn't a situation I ever wanted to be in, but I thought to some extent I could understand his feelings. I hoped I would be much the same if faced with similar fears.
"Brave man in a pretty terrible situation though. Bet the Captain knows how he felt."
I was about to ask what she meant when it struck me. The battle for Juniper Base, Captain Gibson's desperate stand and her mad fight to save her crew. Hers might have been combat, Jitender's might have turned out to have been his fault, but they were both just trying to do the right thing by those they commanded. Maybe that was why she was so hard on her crew, because they had to be the best to survive situations like the ones she'ed seen. Did it haunt her dreams, like so many others who'd faced the enemy before her? It wasn't my place to ask.
"I'd put money on it."
"Oh? I'd hoped you'd argue, I'd have made bank on that one." She gave me a sideways glance. She was certainly an odd one.
"Okay, we've got something. Let's see if we can get a few answers to go with all the questions we're digging up."
We'd got a whole lot of nothing by the time the shuttle returned from it's flight to the abandoned outpost and back. We'd taken brief breaks for food and to watch Murphy and Mcpherson take off in the intimidatingly large shuttle. It seemed so small when undocking from the Vancouver or when you stepped off it. But watching it lift it's unnatural bulk from the ground and accelerate away on screaming hybrid engines was like watching some old world god throwing its bulk into the sky on wings of flesh, not steel.
When we got a message saying they were almost home we rushed to get our suits back on, thankful for a break from the monotony of digging through what little data we had, trying to make sense of the garbled numbers and letters. There had to be something in it but thus far all we'd found were mild headaches and dark circles under at least two sets of eyes.
It was cold outside, even for the middle of the day, and the dust spun in the air when it was kicked up. We scanned the horizon as a group, watching for the first sign of the approaching shuttle. It was unlikely we'd hear it until it was right over us, the thin air barely enough to cover sound, especially with our suits to contend with as well. I imagined what we looked like, four androgynous suits back to back, heads tilted upwards. We must have made a strange sight.
Hallman spotted it first, they're voice loud over the intercom as they called out and pointed. I followed the curved path it followed, banking low over a rise and pointing its nose along the plateau we'd built our outpost on. It dropped lower and lower, passing overhead and dipping us briefly into shadow. I shivered at the unnatural chill which ran through me.
The shuttle pulled it's nose back, flaring its wings as its belly motors coughed into life. They dropped its speed rapidly until it was sitting on them, suspended a few feet above the ground. It lowered slowly until its wheels sank into the dust and its jets spun slowly into silence.
We walked towards it as a group, trudging through the dust dunes that separated us from the shuttle. The ramp began to lower as we approached and almost before it hit the ground one of its crew was bounding towards us.
"Murphy!" I called, raising a hand in greeting.
"Lieutenant?" He sounded tired, more tired than I'd ever heard him.
"Well? Did you find anything?" I realised I sounded breathless, but then if there was any chance of working things out, I believed the outpost held it. A fly-over couldn't tell us much, but it might tell us more about why they ran, or what had happened or something. We had to learn something.
"Yeah… yeah, we found it alright."
"Well come on man, tell us what."
"Bodies, Lieutenant. A lot of bodies."
The pictures didn't tell us much, not enough that we wouldn't need to head out there if we wanted to make a proper survey. But they did tell us that not every member of the Dampier's crew had died when the shuttle crashed, or the ship herself.
The outpost, four modules slung together much like ours and a fifth larger one perhaps brought along specifically for this mission, made a U-shaped outpost with something approaching a courtyard in the centre. Outlying shapes had been identified as generators, air reclamators, water-extractors and similar equipment intended for long terms stays on planets with inhospitable atmospheres. Every building had a drift of the same beige dust that covered everything built up against it, giving the outpost a strange half-buried look.
We didn't know why they'd come or what they'd found to keep them here but to be honest, it didn't matter. We were here because of the other shapes. The courtyard area held two suits, two bodies who lay in the dust where the sun could still catch the metal that decorated them. Three more lay between the outpost and what must have been their field where they parked their shuttles. One was still there, half covered in dust, as abandoned looking as the rest of the outpost buy the shape was unmistakable.
Why run in one overloaded shuttle when you had two? Why abandon the base at all, given that it appeared functional?
Why were the bodies not covered in the all-pervasive dust that seemed to be intent on burying everything else?
I had more questions than ever before. So would the Captain. I wondered how displeased she'd be that I'd yet to deliver her any answers.
Theories?
[ ] Write in
Report to the Captain:
[ ] Stay with the plan - full survey of the crashed ship before anything else.
[ ] The outpost is the key - Move our team there and begin looking for answers.
[ ] It's too dangerous - We can't risk continuing a mission that's killed so many before.
[ ] Write in
Vote Details:
- 7 votes for Of course, analysis - @hcvquizibo @kinigget @Vyslanté @Night_stalker @Mr Apollo @Crazy Tom @E73S
- 1 votes for Of course, crash site - @pspan
- 1 votes for quick assessment - @Nevill
- 1 votes for recon on return - @veekie
"Captain, if you're trying to insinuate that I'm somehow shirking my duty-" His indignation was almost audible.
"No, Lieutenant, simply an observation." I pressed a hand against my forehead and bit back a sigh. Wescott had apparently become oversensitive to criticism since we'd argued.
"I- Very well." Wondering idly if he looked as embarrassed as he sounded, I opened the view of the planet below on my console's display while he found the words for a more appropriate response. "If you think that would be a better use of Mcpherson's time, then i'll gladly release him too it but perhaps we could wait until the sun rises?"
I frowned and waved at the comms officer - what was his name, Lopez? Covering the headsets microphone I hissed "When's sunrise for him?" at him.
"Five hours, Ma'am" I nodded him my thanks.
"You've got six hours, Wescott, and then I want that bird in the air." The planet span faster than I'd really thought about.
"Understood, Captain. We'll have the shuttle doing low passes in the morning. Was there anything else?"
"No, Mr. Wescott, I told you I'd give you free reign, and I meant it." I paused, smiling momentarily to myself. "Mostly, at least. Vancouver actual signing off."
- - -
I snatched the headset off and almost threw it at the comms console. She'd promised me my initiative, she'd agreed that I would be able to make my own decisions on this mission. And now, not even a day had passed, and already she was getting involved and sticking her nose in where she herself had said it didn't belong.
And to make matters worse she wasn't just giving orders where she'd agreed not too. She was ignoring the facts on the ground, ignoring the fact that she didn't even know the facts. If I thought about it - and I was trying not to - given the fact that we didn't even know what had forced the evacuation of the William Dampier's crew, separating any of us from our shuttle was putting us all in danger. Whatever had done that to the dead was presumably still out there. Unless it was aliens. Maybe it had been alien invaders, coming from the unknown reaches of deep space to steal our children and eat our women. They could have shot down the Dampier with their plasmatic cannons or abducted the few crewmen who didn't try to escape on the crashed shuttle with their tractor beams. They would surely have left long before we'd arrived.
I smirked, stifling a chuckle. However anxious I was about finding out what had actually happened, whatever hidden truth there was to find out, it certainly wasn't going to be the plot of the pulp novella I'd bought when I'd left the ship on leave for the first time. I wouldn't call myself disappointed that that wasn't the case, it would likely prove to be a damn sight safer than enemy, whatever it was. But proving the existence of alien life, however hostile it was, would certainly be something of a coup.
Shaking myself back into action I realised I needed some kind of plan. The one I'd been forming had been simple; Give three of the team six hours off-duty to rest, then send them back to the crash site, the rest of us beginning analysis of the data drives we'd recovered. Of course, with the new taskings from the Captain, everything had to change.
"Murphy, Mcpherson!" I shouted. The rest of the team had kindly given me a little privacy while I reported to the Captain. Not that it had ended up being much of a report, more like an excuse for her to harangue me for not being the right kind of XO. Perhaps if they'd taught her a little more about how to lead people outside of combat we'd be in a better situation than if i'd come out of the same schools that she did.
Murphy's head appeared around the door, thankfully breaking that particular chain of thought.
"You called, Boss?" I wouldn't call the look I gave him a glare, but it certainly wasn't the nicest. "You called, Lieutenant?" his grin could only be described as cheesy.
"Is Mcpherson with you?"
"Nah, he headed out." Murphy shrugged "Said he wanted to check over his baby."
"He's obsessed." I sighed. Mcpherson had barely come away from the shuttle since we landed, claiming that the dust was damaging her turbine's even when there was no wind. He'd spent a lot of his time walking around her, trudging through the dust on his own. It was a little worrying. "Well, get him in. You've got four hours to get rested and then you've got a new tasking."
"Just us? Without an officer present?"
"Just because we're away from the Captain, it doesn't mean you can be disrespectful." He raised his hands in something approaching an apology. I had yet to work out which of us was more glad to be out from under her for a little while, him or me. I was still fairly confident it was me. "Yes, just the two of you. She wants you to take the shuttle and do a low altitude survey of the abandoned outpost."
"And leave you here?"
"We've got plenty to be getting on with, Murphy, don't you worry about us. But if we're going to keep her sweet, then we're going to need those pictures."
"Aye, Lieutenant, pictures to keep the Captain happy. And thermals as well?" He was grinning again.
"As much as you can get, Murphy. Now go and get that damn pilot, and get some rest. You're up in-" I checked my wristwatch and frowned "five and a half hours."
"Roger that, Lieutenant." He disappeared almost as fast as he'd appeared and barely a minute later I heard the inner door of the airlock cycling open. I leaned on the console and breathed deeply for a few minutes, enjoying the cold bottled air our outpost was filled with. I wondered if the abandoned one still had an atmosphere, or if the evacuating crew had left its airlock open in their hurried escape. I couldn't believe they would have had time to cycle through it properly if they were in enough of a hurry to abandon everything else.
Stretching I walked through to the habitation section. The rest of the team, Kottindour, Robinson and Hallman, were stretched out across their bunks comfortably, chatting amongst themselves. All three heads snapped up as I walked in and suddenly the room went quiet. Even out here they didn't want to talk openly in front of an officer. Was it better that they didn't? Was it more respectful of my authority, or did they simply fear what my rank pins represented?
"Kottindour, Hallman, you're off watch for four, get some sleep. Robinson, you're with me." While most of the team slept, we could at least make a start on some of what we'd picked up. Robinson jumped to her feet.
"Aye, lieutenant." She followed as I walked back into the other module. Our outpost was so small it almost hadn't been worth stepping through to disturb them, but I figured it was best to give orders in person, if I could.
- - -
I dropped the cables I was holding and slumped against the wall. More than four hours work and we'd gotten nowhere. Several of the drives from the ship's main computer were so damaged that they'd cracked inside their crash casings, an impressive occurrence given that were designed to resist weapons fire, let alone the g-forces of anything that had happened to them. Perhaps they were simply faulty, or were not as well protected as the manufacturer's had promised. Something to report, maybe, once we'd returned home.
Others had burned out when the power system went on the Dampier, their data perhaps only recoverable with tools that we certainly didn't have at our disposal. We'd keep them, of course, and deliver them to the service's best analysts. They might have a little more luck than we were having with rudimentary systems and as much computing power as we could rig together our of what the hab's were built with.
"What do we have left?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. The work has been surprisingly tiring, with intense focus needed as we stripped open damaged drive casings and tried to access their much needed data.
Robinson was sat on the other side of the narrow module, a pile of data drives scattered across the floor next to her. She fumbled through them, scanning the neat little labels we'd added in full confidence when we'd started our work, dredging what remained of the once considerable pile.
"Uh… the Captain's, the comm logs I pulled, and one of the core drives. Not much, I'm afraid." She looked irritable, smooth skin creased by a frown and several strands of her once neatly tied hair spraying out behind her ears. I'd heard several of the junior crew talking about how attractive she was and I believed them. But perhaps not when she was frustrated with uncooperative technology.
"Pass me the Captain's drive, maybe we'll get somewhere with that." She handed over the slim little black cased computer drive with it's blindingly brightly chromed access ports. I plucked the bundle of cables i'd thrown down in irritation off the floor and went back to work, fitting the data jacks into the right ports before finally, almost reverently, pushing the power button.
We grinned at each other at the happy little beep and whir that the drive emitted. I set it down carefully on the floor and took a deep breath. It seemed we'd finally caught some good luck.
Robinson was on her feet long before I was, bouncing up with an overly energetic spring. It was a vicious comparison to me hauling myself up. Every muscle in my legs ached from sitting on them for too long, not to mention my knees. We weren't mentioning my knees.
"Maybe this one will work…" I said almost to myself as we both stood watching the drive chug through its boot-up sequence. Even if it was perfectly fine externally, it had still suffered a horrendously high-G impact and who knew what might have happened inside the casing.
"Don't jinx it, Lieutenant."
"I'd touch wood, but we don't seem to have any." She smiled, showing a row of shiny white teeth. The computer beeped, grabbing our attention. It had picked a good moment.
I tapped through the opening checks and eventually hit a login screen, with what must have been the Captain's initial and surname - KJitender, a name I was sure I'd heard before - already entered. I hit a button on the keyboard and pulled my data-stick from a breast pocket. Robinson eyed me doubtfully as I pressed it against a sensor and almost jumped out of her skin when the screen flashed 'login accepted - 2nd Lieutenant D Wescott' in block letters.
"Officer's secret" I said, grinning. It was hardly a secret, that we could access any computer aboard one of His Majesty's ships. We simply weren't supposed to do it unless there was a pressing need and so it was a privilege rarely used.
The screen seemed exactly as it should have been, but everything was a little shifted. Letters were transposed or missing on most of the files listed on the main screen and several icons were either the wrong colour or entirely distorted. It was more than a little worrying.
"Maybe the files will be a little better?" Robinson said. She didn't sound convinced and neither was I. I was getting that horrible creeping feeling that we'd been set up for an even deeper disappointment.
"Maybe" I wasn't going to say much else. We were both professionals.
We ran through several back-doored directories at speed. I knew asking the communications specialist to tag along would be a good idea, she was data mining almost faster than I'd been able to log into the drive.
"Anything specific you want?" She was dragging up window after twisted window, half of them with almost unintelligible names plastered across them. "We're pretty damn lucky we've got this far to be honest, something's got awful screwed up in there." She nodded sideways at the drive still whirring away happily on the floor.
"Logs might be a good place to start."
"Roger that LT." Several screens closed and others opened in their place. "Oooo-kay. I think I can get the last couple in some sort of semi-usable format. Want audio or text?"
"Audio, it can't be that bad."
"Sure it can't, it's not like the ship crashed or anything." The sarcasm in her tone was almost palpable. It was like being slapped by something soft. Or maybe that was the tiredness talking. "D'you want the last, or the penultimate?"
"Might as well have the last first." It might cushion the blow, having it come straight away. My thoughts were interrupted by a sudden distortion from the computer's speakers. The quality was exceedingly poor, and cut in and out with an almost worrying regularity. Maybe the drive was cracked and we just got lucky.
"-ptian Kennedy Jitender. I don't --- this but perhaps it will assuage my guilt. I --- surface and it's my responsibility that --- even now diving into the atmosphere to rescue --- pilot to complete his task without distraction. Perhaps --- last log. Captain Jitender, signing off."
Robinson paused the recording before it could start again. We stood in silence for at least a minute, perhaps both os us realising that we'd just head the last words of the Dampier's Captain. He sounded strong, resolute, even in the face of adversity. As much as it horrified me, it was an honour to hear it.
"Well that was worrying." She said eventually, breaking the silence.
"You have a way with words."
"You're a flatterer, Lieutenant." Was I? I wasn't trying to be. "Here's the penultimate recording."
"This is the log of Captain Kennedy Jiten--- outpost on the surface has declared a mayday --- that it was just bad weather. We all did. No-one --- and yet it has proven to be very much more than --- we return I expect to face a board for my actions. I will gladly --- hope that I can save as much of my crew as possible. --- Jitender, signing off"
"That was so much more comforting." I couldn't help but join in the morbidity after hearing that. It seemed like the man had resigned himself to whatever fate the universe had for him just so long as he could bring his crew back alive. It wasn't a situation i'd been in, it wasn't a situation I ever wanted to be in, but I thought to some extent I could understand his feelings. I hoped I would be much the same if faced with similar fears.
"Brave man in a pretty terrible situation though. Bet the Captain knows how he felt."
I was about to ask what she meant when it struck me. The battle for Juniper Base, Captain Gibson's desperate stand and her mad fight to save her crew. Hers might have been combat, Jitender's might have turned out to have been his fault, but they were both just trying to do the right thing by those they commanded. Maybe that was why she was so hard on her crew, because they had to be the best to survive situations like the ones she'ed seen. Did it haunt her dreams, like so many others who'd faced the enemy before her? It wasn't my place to ask.
"I'd put money on it."
"Oh? I'd hoped you'd argue, I'd have made bank on that one." She gave me a sideways glance. She was certainly an odd one.
"Okay, we've got something. Let's see if we can get a few answers to go with all the questions we're digging up."
- - -
We'd got a whole lot of nothing by the time the shuttle returned from it's flight to the abandoned outpost and back. We'd taken brief breaks for food and to watch Murphy and Mcpherson take off in the intimidatingly large shuttle. It seemed so small when undocking from the Vancouver or when you stepped off it. But watching it lift it's unnatural bulk from the ground and accelerate away on screaming hybrid engines was like watching some old world god throwing its bulk into the sky on wings of flesh, not steel.
When we got a message saying they were almost home we rushed to get our suits back on, thankful for a break from the monotony of digging through what little data we had, trying to make sense of the garbled numbers and letters. There had to be something in it but thus far all we'd found were mild headaches and dark circles under at least two sets of eyes.
It was cold outside, even for the middle of the day, and the dust spun in the air when it was kicked up. We scanned the horizon as a group, watching for the first sign of the approaching shuttle. It was unlikely we'd hear it until it was right over us, the thin air barely enough to cover sound, especially with our suits to contend with as well. I imagined what we looked like, four androgynous suits back to back, heads tilted upwards. We must have made a strange sight.
Hallman spotted it first, they're voice loud over the intercom as they called out and pointed. I followed the curved path it followed, banking low over a rise and pointing its nose along the plateau we'd built our outpost on. It dropped lower and lower, passing overhead and dipping us briefly into shadow. I shivered at the unnatural chill which ran through me.
The shuttle pulled it's nose back, flaring its wings as its belly motors coughed into life. They dropped its speed rapidly until it was sitting on them, suspended a few feet above the ground. It lowered slowly until its wheels sank into the dust and its jets spun slowly into silence.
We walked towards it as a group, trudging through the dust dunes that separated us from the shuttle. The ramp began to lower as we approached and almost before it hit the ground one of its crew was bounding towards us.
"Murphy!" I called, raising a hand in greeting.
"Lieutenant?" He sounded tired, more tired than I'd ever heard him.
"Well? Did you find anything?" I realised I sounded breathless, but then if there was any chance of working things out, I believed the outpost held it. A fly-over couldn't tell us much, but it might tell us more about why they ran, or what had happened or something. We had to learn something.
"Yeah… yeah, we found it alright."
"Well come on man, tell us what."
"Bodies, Lieutenant. A lot of bodies."
- - -
The pictures didn't tell us much, not enough that we wouldn't need to head out there if we wanted to make a proper survey. But they did tell us that not every member of the Dampier's crew had died when the shuttle crashed, or the ship herself.
The outpost, four modules slung together much like ours and a fifth larger one perhaps brought along specifically for this mission, made a U-shaped outpost with something approaching a courtyard in the centre. Outlying shapes had been identified as generators, air reclamators, water-extractors and similar equipment intended for long terms stays on planets with inhospitable atmospheres. Every building had a drift of the same beige dust that covered everything built up against it, giving the outpost a strange half-buried look.
We didn't know why they'd come or what they'd found to keep them here but to be honest, it didn't matter. We were here because of the other shapes. The courtyard area held two suits, two bodies who lay in the dust where the sun could still catch the metal that decorated them. Three more lay between the outpost and what must have been their field where they parked their shuttles. One was still there, half covered in dust, as abandoned looking as the rest of the outpost buy the shape was unmistakable.
Why run in one overloaded shuttle when you had two? Why abandon the base at all, given that it appeared functional?
Why were the bodies not covered in the all-pervasive dust that seemed to be intent on burying everything else?
I had more questions than ever before. So would the Captain. I wondered how displeased she'd be that I'd yet to deliver her any answers.
Theories?
[ ] Write in
Report to the Captain:
[ ] Stay with the plan - full survey of the crashed ship before anything else.
[ ] The outpost is the key - Move our team there and begin looking for answers.
[ ] It's too dangerous - We can't risk continuing a mission that's killed so many before.
[ ] Write in
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
On the shuttle? The turbine blades are monocrystal alloys, the engine bells are made of similar. The hull of the shuttles are a combination high-heat graphite allow on the belly and lightweight metal and alloy mixes on non-reentry surfaces.
The time of day for evacuation is unknown.
The penultimate recording came ninety minutes before the final recording.
So, iron and nickel, with the ignored hulls being non-ferrous. Presumably the spinning drives are magnetic. That fits with a pyromagnetic or thermomagnetic lifeform, and might also explain the odd data corruption. Such a lifeform might also be attracted to hemoglobin.
If it's pyromagnetic, it'll be most active during morning and dusk, or major climate events.
If it's pyromagnetic, it'll be most active during morning and dusk, or major climate events.
Vyslanté
The self is a prison
- Location
- European Union
...how do you reach that conclusion ?
- Location
- St. Petersburg
The captain's log mentions that the first signs of whatever disaster hit Eta were confused for bad weather. It's pretty hard to confuse animal life or whatever we first suspected for weather effects. And the Captain confirmed that the planet should be barren. Yet the wounds on the ship's crew suggest something messed with them after they were dead.
I am not sure I would go as far as to attribute sentience to whatever that is, but it should be something that is easy to confuse with a natural calamity.
Also, I am not sure how, but the Appendix might be of help here.
There was supposed to be a non-human complex around here. Sounds like your generic 'genie out of the bottle' tale if true.
@HMS Sophia, how long ago has Outpost Eta been established? 'A few days after that ill-fated ship arrived in the planet's orbit' is more than a bit ambiguous.
Also, the away team has the thermals with them, right? Are there still signs of activity inside the outpost? Do they look like anything that is supposed to be there? Do we know how people would look like if they were still alive in there?
Edit: an interesting question is why the captain of Dampier considered whatever happened his personal responsibility? What orders were given to lead to this sad state of affairs?
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] It's too dangerous - We can't risk continuing a mission that's killed so many before.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
The problem is you don't really know. The Dampier missed their first check in a month after arrival and the crew has been working on the assumption that Eta was down for about three weeks prior to that.
Yes they have thermals. No. there are no signs of life.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
But there were when we first got here?
Or are there still heat sources, but none that would correspond to human bodies?
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
The latter. There's little warm spots, which may indicate still functional machinery, emergency back-ups and similar.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Our pilot was worried that dust affects the turbines negatively, so the 2nd shuttle might be out of order. But if they sent two shuttles when the alarm was sounded, the speed with which it broke would be pretty terrifying.
Alternatively, they might have sent the 2nd shuttle in a hurry because the 1st one broke and couldn't evacuate anyone.
It looks like the shuttle took off leaving several people behind. That is a pretty damning move.
The dust clings to everything that doesn't have organic matter. Interesting.
@HMS Sophia, do we have an idea why the Dampier has attempted a dangerous maneuver to catch the shuttle? Is it because it couldn't reach orbit while overloaded?
Alternatively, they might have sent the 2nd shuttle in a hurry because the 1st one broke and couldn't evacuate anyone.
It looks like the shuttle took off leaving several people behind. That is a pretty damning move.
The dust clings to everything that doesn't have organic matter. Interesting.
@HMS Sophia, do we have an idea why the Dampier has attempted a dangerous maneuver to catch the shuttle? Is it because it couldn't reach orbit while overloaded?
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
The biggest mystery here is the bodies repelling dust or crawling from under it or... I have no idea.
It looks like whatever happened at the outpost, it killed people quickly, because there are 5 bodies of the people who were running towards the shuttle. They didn't make it to the shuttle, and they didn't return back to base, suggesting the death was swift.
I mean, it's possible they lived through the evacuation and then came out to witness the fall of the Dampier and then froze to death where they stood, but I find it highly implausible.
If we understand what's going on with the bodies, we might be able to guess the rest. So... any theories?
I am tempted to continue working on the crash site until we get more conclusive data.
It looks like whatever happened at the outpost, it killed people quickly, because there are 5 bodies of the people who were running towards the shuttle. They didn't make it to the shuttle, and they didn't return back to base, suggesting the death was swift.
I mean, it's possible they lived through the evacuation and then came out to witness the fall of the Dampier and then froze to death where they stood, but I find it highly implausible.
If we understand what's going on with the bodies, we might be able to guess the rest. So... any theories?
I am tempted to continue working on the crash site until we get more conclusive data.
4WheelSword
The original N-body Problem
- Pronouns
- It/She/They
That's the current working theory. It would make a lot of sense, certainly.