Chapter XXXVI
Date: 1735-241-993 to 0921-266-993
Location: In Jumpspace outbound from Liar's Oath
Ian whispers, "Damn!". The ex-marine mutters under his breath as he starts to stow away his gathered equipment and supplies. He will return to the lounge area with his vac suit fully sealed, and monitor the situation from a console. "Capt'n, Ian here. I am ready for jump."
When Kevon makes the announcement that he intends to make an early jump, Swann's face turns pale inside his vacc suit. "Oh frell, not again," he mutters to himself.
Vargas concentrates on setting up the pilot's console for the anticipated jump.
At 1748, a weary Kevon dims the lights briefly, and the Bay Keaven lurches into jumpspace bound for Shanape. When the lights dim, Swann says a brief prayer. ~Please Lord, not another misjump, not like the last time.~
The instant Kevon activates the jump drives, he knows something’s wrong. “We’re in trouble,” he muses just before he loses his spatial awareness, followed by the wave of nausea.
The Bray Keaven's entry into jumpspace isn't the normal smooth transition: all of the crew feel like they really are lurching in all directions at once before reality settles down again. Then, a wave of
nausea hits, and the world seems to spin for about five minutes before settling into a low level of nausea.
As Kevin dimms the lights, Vargas initiates the jump sequence from his station. As the engineering picture begins to emerge on the instrument repeaters, he groans inside. he fights back the waves of nausea generated by the rough transition to jump space. Once the jump threshold is transited, he sets the pilot's console for the transition to Shanape. He then turns to Kevin, "Captain, my instruments indicate that we are now in jumpspace. Pilot's station now set for transit to Shanape.
“We’re definitely in trouble.” After things settle down and Kevon gets the initial bad news from Martha, he addresses Emile, “Get some sleep. We’re going to need someone awake and ready to man the bridge on a moment’s notice if the jump drive fails. We’ll alternate in 12-hour shifts. “Meanwhile, I’m going to see if I can find out where I went wrong…” Thinking of the long hours manning the bridge, Kevon wonders if anyone else aboard is qualified to pilot a starship just in case.
Following the captain's orders, Vargas staggers from the bridge to his cabin and collapses into a deep, hopefully complete rest.
The hair on the back of Swann's neck starts to stand up. His arms turn to gooseflesh. His eyes go wide as he begins to sweat and salivate. ~Lord no, not that, not again.~ He fights to keep the
bile down as his stomach churns.
Aidan emerges wearily from a wave of nausea and reflects that he's glad he's not piloting the ship. 'Good Call Captain' he thinks, happy that no bomb has gone off...so far. He ponders looking for a bomb for a moment and then decides that looking for his bed is better. After getting back out of his suit and indelicately draping it over a chair, Aidan keys the comm "I'm going to check out how the computer systems survived and then I'm going to turn in unless someone needs me to watch something." He then dives in to make sure of things, get's lost for an hour in that and heads to bed with an alarm for 10 hours later.
In Port Engineering, Martha jump drive console suddenly shows a number of alarming redline spikes in various jump drive systems. A couple of the main jump field integrity projectors flash red and then go to the black outlined in red of burnt out systems. The reserve jump field integrity projectors for those systems immediately snap to full power but all but one are glowing an alarming yellow. A number of other subsystems also appear to be either on backups or are dangerously close to failing.
Martha's quick diagnostic reveals that a number of jump drive subsystems are damaged. Repairs to most of them will require work at a starport repair facility. On the bright side, the jump field seems to be holding. For now. And, there hasn't been boom of the explosive sort.
Swann closes his eyes and starts to take slow, deep breaths through his nose. He ignores the sour taste in his mouth and the churning in his stomach. ~Calm down. Pull yourself together.
Things don't have to be like last time. We should have plenty of supplies. Things shouldn't resort ... ~ he shuts down the nightmare images forming in his mind. ~Don't think about last time. Think about now. What are we going to do now?~ Swann concentrates on his breathing for a moment, then tries to think rationally. ~We don't have any fuel scoops or processors, so if we don't come out in a system with a starport, we're frelled. But at least we're alive. We have supplies, we have weapons, we have resourceful people in the crew. We can make it through this.~
Feeling a little better, Swann puts away his gauss rifle then heads to engineering to see if Martha needs help with anything.
Martha does what she can to insure that the ship is reasonably safe, then before being forced to rest due to the lack of sleep on Liar's Oath. Although Martha tried to get some rest, it didn't succeed, so she'll doggedly do her best and then get eight hours before getting back to it. She knows they've misjumped. The fact that they are still alive means that there's a chance for survival. She'll recommend to Kevon privately that he might consider rationing until the crew knows whether or not they'll be in space for days or weeks. When she awakens, she goes to work on Emergency Field Repairs to bring the jump drives back online, and track down what causes the catastrophic damage inflicted upon her ship. The hymnals of St Elvis will fill the Engineering room as she works away...
Ian will check to make sure everyone is Ok, and he will get a damage assesment from Martha before grabbing a quick bite to eat (if his stomach will accept it) and head off to bed.
Saro gives what he can to those first up to stand watch, a little something to keep them a bit more alert, without keeping them wide awake for another 48 hours. He then crashes in the sickbay, his suit and med kit near to hand.
The crew spends the first few days and nights in jump pass in either frenzied work, nagging worry, or nauseous discomfort (or all three). Martha's checks and efforts (with Swann and Vargas assisting as they can) keep the jump drive online and properly maintaining jump field integrity. Most of the damage appears to have been done in the initial lurch into jumpspace due to some abnormal interaction with jumpspace when the jump field initially formed.
Over the first few days, there are twelve alarming spikes and fluctuations in the jump field which burn out more jump drive subsystems. Martha and the others throw themselves into maintaining
the jump drive and trying to get ahead of the fluctuations, and their efforts pay off in that the jump field doesn't destabilize and collapse and that, by Martha's estimate, the jump drive should be good for one parsec jumps until completely repaired.
Unfortunately, Martha's initial estimate for the cost of the repair is a bit scary: around a million and a half credits, if not more given the damage to the drives.
After the first few days, the jump drive settles into a more normal operating pattern, though a number of the working systems are still in the caution zone.
Saro does stuff the drugged Vargr into the remaining low berth. The nausea does subside to a manageable level, and the crew is able to keep down the short rations that everyone is on (just in case). With someone always on the bridge to monitor the jump field integrity, the crew do their best to pass the time in jump.
An hour before nominal jump emergence time, the crew returns to their duty stations, suited up to wait for jump emergence. The nominal jump emergence time comes and passes by without any indication that the Bray Keaven will emerge from jump soon. The minutes stretch into hours. A the four hour mark, Kevon starts having the crew take hour to two hour naps in shifts. Martha checks the jump drive, and can find nothing that indicates that there is a problem beyond the ones that she already found.
At the eight hour mark, with no indication at all that the jump field is "thinning," the crew stands down and goes back to the normal jump space watch pattern. A day passes. Then another. And another. Then a week. And another week.
On the 266th day of the year 993, at 0913, Kevon, on the first bridge watch, gladly sees the jump field monitor indicating that the field is thinning to the point where jump emergence should be imminent. He signals the crew, and the crew suit up and go to their duty stations.
At 0921, the Bray Keaven emerges from jumpspace into normal space. The first thing that is apparent is that the system isn't Shanape: the single star shines a bright orange of a K class star, not the duller red of an M class as in Shanape.
Martha's initial sweep with the Sensors reveals no ships in the nearby vicinity, no system beacon (that can be detected right now), and 4 gas giants. The Bray Keaven is 3,000 kkm "down" and to the side off the orbital plane of the nearest planet, a solid world, some 9,000 km or so in diameter with probably 20-30% water coverage.
