The Long Journey Home

J. D. Tsuba · Feb 1, 2013

"Hmm a good selection, May I have a copy of the data prepared for my personal computers. It would be useful to share amongst starseeker so we can reach a decision together.

As for personal preference, I would say closer observation would be required, maybe monitor the radio signals coming from the advanced world, and a low orbit pass around the other two, to try and pinpoint any possible threats/boons/landing sites. but that is just what I would do, I must consult my commanders and other science staff before we can reach any real decision I suppose. Beaurocracy is such tedium, is it not Mr Shafer?"

"What are you're thoughts on expedition desinations?"

As they continue their conversation and finish their meal, J.D. scans the room, seeing Meia, a familiar techie, and from their brief interactions before, Arthur. Catching the eye of Meia, they wander over

"good day Miss Hoffman, Mr Campbell, have you seen the captains lately, or for that matter any of the other members of starseeker, We have important business to get down to."

Universal_narration · Feb 1, 2013

Bridge

Bart starts to reply "Yea and.." He hears a beep behind him and Ezra looks at her own screen. Ezra says to Bart "Sir there is a ship cleared for flight just outside the Wanderer.

Bart just shrugs "Who's flying it?" Ezra has a one word reply for him that makes him immediately open a comms link "Sarah"

Bart commences a conversation "Oi Sarah, what are you doing?!"

The bridge can hear a reply from Sarah "Oh you know just the usual. Don't you worry, I have a bodyguard this time and he's lovely."

"A .. bodyguard?"

"Yes! He looks quite fetching in a suit too."

A louder hum goes off behind Sarah and comms link is suddenly cut off.

"The hell just happened?"

Plane

Read the Bridge conversation as well, this happens directly after it.

The small cube is spinning quite fast until it abruptly stops and hums while emitting a green glow. A figure of a bipedal robot is standing in the middle of the ship. It points at you then points at the ship, you hear the motor functions stop. There is still a flow of oxygen and life systems are stable, though communications have also been cut off. The creature tries to grasp your head though as he is just an apparition his hand moves right through you. You feel as if someone is trying to get you to remember something as he does though you can't quite figure it out. The apparition walks over to the cube and points at a small seam that looks like it can be opened. Sarah opens it and you see what looks like a very very small panel and wires coming out of it.

Tactics room

After a little while Naomi enters the room. "Good morning private, I would like to discuss your findings. Your report seems to suggest that the enemy ships were not laying in ambush. From your experience what do you think this might entail?" Naomi takes up a seat next to the table as she lays down the tablet she normally holds.

Gym

Fedor spends a good deal of time with Alexander doing the intense work out the German usually has planned. Throughout the workout Fedor is paying close attention to Alexander and isn't hiding the fact. Occasionally during a rest during reps Fedor asks simple questions about why Alexander thinks a particular exercise is useful to his form, sometimes asking for advice improving his technique. Part way through Fedor asks "So captain, any other interests other than working on your magnificent physique?"

Mess Hall

"Of course, here you go." Hans hands J.D. a data stick with the information he needs. "I personally think we should investigate the continent or the planet with radio signals coming off of it. The former will be useful as if it is an untouched planet it will be rife with resources for the picking, the other will have intelligent life which is always interesting."

Meia replies to J.D's inquiry "Er, I don't know. You have your captain on comms don't you, you could perhaps call him? I did see Echo squad captain talking with a doctor earlier about a workout. Try the gym maybe?"

@ Ghost

Nope

Aleksandra Zhukov · Feb 2, 2013

Aleksandra nodded at her commanding officer though she wasn't really paying attention. She rebooted Olga and ran some human interface exercises. Seeming discontent with the results she powered the unit down and plugged it into her comms pad to check the code. After a few minutes she unplugged it still dissatisfied.

"She seems to be functioning fine. I can't tell what went wrong but it doesn't seem to be a problem with her code or interface. I'll take her to an engineer to have a look at the hard ware. Thank you for letting me know sir." She paused for a moment and almost inaudibly said "Thank you ghost".

She then turned to her pad and called up Tami. "Hi Tami, it's me again. I know I just left but you wouldn't happen to know anything about VI hardware would you? I'm a programmer and interface specialist so I'm stumped."

Ray_Ray · Feb 2, 2013

"Well it worries for two reasons Commodore" she said, bringing up the display as she took the accounted for troop numbers, scaling them across "Firstly if this is merely a security escort then what is the top end of their military if they have any, what scale of manpower or weaponry can be deployed against us" she paused, moving the picture out as far as possible "The need for such an escort also worries me, why did they need it and why did it need to be so powerful by our standards... either they consider this zone incredibly dangerous or the scale of firepower we will encounter will hilariously outmatch us"

"This problem is obviously compounded by our lack of ship born weaponry, while our Suits and armaments are quite formidable they lack long range engagement... this means our opponent can almost certainly dictate the terms of engagement if they bright any large scale weaponry, we may have to consider salvaging shielding or armaments to give us an ability to fight on a capitol ship scale" a soft sigh escaped her lips as she paused "To be blunt we are in unknown territory fighting on unknown terms against a foe we know very little about, If retreat were an option I would suggest it but for now we should use this scrapyard for supplies and to hide us until we can make a plan of action, if you want my tactical opinion of course" she flashed a brief smile

"Permission to speak freely?"

J. D. Tsuba · Feb 2, 2013

J.D. opens a link to all members of starseeker
"fellow explorers, I have been given details of our possible destinations, I think it would be a good idea to have another briefing to discuss our options, I propose we all meet at XX:XX in the Science Laboratory."
J.D. opens another link to Mikhail this time

OOC:

I think I have mikhails comm frequency, if not sorry, ignore the following

"Ah Mr Zhukov, I was wondering if you still had that little box you scavenged? seeing as we have a bit of free time, I was wondering if I couldn't try and do a little science on it?"

Alexander Bauhdric · Feb 2, 2013

Alexander would reply to the best of his knowledge, passing down generations of experience whenever prompted.

"Other interests? Why, of course! Such an indomitable body would be wasted without the occupation of the soul. Reading is a primary interest of mine; from thrillers, to discourses on logic! Debating is also something I take great personal pleasure in; the prospect of sharpening my mind against fellow equals is one that I can rarely turn down."

He smiled, putting down his weights for now as he continued

"Ah, the hours I spent up late at night debating with the platoon chaplain...There is no finer indulgence for the mind than wrestling with arcane and irregular concepts on a warm spring night."

Ray Ray · Feb 2, 2013

"Wait...A suit...Is that...? Bart can you get the comm link back? This doesn't look good; I know they're cleared but under the circumstances aren't we supposed to be deploying as teams, ey?" he asked, his demeanor changing from jokey to serious in a split second.

Arthur Campbell · Feb 2, 2013

@ universal narration

If its possible to fashion one of Meia's pens into a bomb relatively quickly whilst I'm in the armoury I'll do so, using material scavegend from the AWB. Ideally make it so it'll go off shortly after she clicks the top of it Otherwise Arthur will just take one with him and do so when he's alone
Rolls in case Arthur can: six degrees of success on crafting

Arthur rolled his eyes when Bauhdric was mentioned and nodded at J.D. when Meia recomended the gym, his mouth too full of food to speak politely. Finished with his meal he took it upon himself to familiarize himself more intimately with the ship and went for a wander seeing where his feet would take him. Kaboom as ever rolling along beside him.

if he finds somewhere sufficiently quiet and isolated to make the bomb on his travels he will do so otherwise he'll wander about, heading to places he hasn't been before

Universal_narration · Feb 3, 2013

Gymnasium

Tami replies to the call "Sure, bring the VI over I'll have a look see." Taking it to her she has a quick look over and comes to a conclusion quite quickly. "Well something or someone has disabled her recording equipment. I can repair it but it will take a little while, as it fried the circuitry instead of damaging it externally like I would have expected." She shakes her head thinking.

Fedor sits down to catch his breath "Quite the intellectual then aren't you? Heh, as the Greeks said a perfect body deserves a perfect mind. Looks like you have both. Though you say you debated with your platoon chaplain, are you religious or were you debating the merits of religion?" Fedor strokes his hair back into place after it got messed up during the last set of reps.

Bridge

Bart is frantically pressing buttons on his dashboard. He shouts at Ezra a couple of times about if there is anything out there other than the ship, her reply is that there isn't.

"Oi, what the hell how did we suddenly lose connection, what in the world is going on? Sarah, give me a crazy word to say that you're okay? Chief Engineer?" He slams his hands on the controls then turns around as he stands up. "I have no authority over you Raymond however, may you fulfill this request? Gather your squad and find out what the hell is happening out there?"

Tsuba

The link as a whole goes out no problem. When you specifically open a link to Mikhail you get loud static back then what sounds like a crash then the line cuts off.

From your suit you hear RIN pipe up "The helmsman, he's there!"

Mess hall

Fashion prank explosive, complete

Arthur wanders the vessel going to places such as the Gym, medical wing and some parts of the civilian quarters. Until he gets the call from Tsuba.

Tactics Room

Naomi looks pensive. "Yes, we will have to salvage and get this ship ready for war at some point. The thought did cross my mind. We would always be horrendously outmatched if we came against an actual military that much was always feared. I am sure Okado is thinking about tactics for the next time we fight those things." She pauses. Permission to speak freely granted."

Everyone except Mikhail

You get a call from Tsuba about gathering to talk about the next destination. (See Tsuba's post)

Mikhail Zhukov · Feb 3, 2013

Mikhail raises his head and gives the control panel of the plane a puzzled look.
Can't help but notice that you used autopilot up to this point. Sarah do you actually know ho......

As soon as he saw the figure Mikhail jumped up dropping the screen he was holding and quickly shifted around the cube until he was between the robot and Sarah his right hand on the hilt of his now half drawn knife. After realizing that it was just a hologram of some sort Mikhail eased up.

That is definitively not what I expected. he said talking more to himself than anyone else Even better. If it was trying to murder us it would probably kill life support or ram the wanderer. So Sarah we might be first humans to ever communicate with an alien species. Except for Echo captain. Although I am not sure he counts as human anyway.

There was a nudging at the back of his mind. A memory demanding attention. But whenever he tried to pull it out the thin thread would always break and the memory would sink in the whirlpool of old scars.

After examining the new found wires Mikhail turned to Sarah.

I have a feeling our primary assumption about this gentleman being a helmsman was not entirely correct. Well we might find out soon. I think we can salvage one of the screens and connect it through this panel. he said his knife already at work freeing the screen of one of the gadgets, that Sarah brought, from its eternal slavery.

OOC: I rolled scavenge and engineering for this. I am going to put roll results outside spoiler tags for the sake of screwing with the rest of the party. Both my scavenge and engineering are 7.

Roll 1: 6+3=9
Roll 2: 5+5=10