Hot Wet Arrival (Closed)

Hot Wet Arrival

- a journey to the Hot Wet Planet
CLOSED THREAD, PM Lovelynice before trying to join

In the great depths of the void between the stars, the extreme cold and darkness of an ever-present night was rarely traversed by any visitor. A rock might pass through this region in space once in many millennia, but very little else had come by in millions of years. The stars were all distant from here, becoming only a dim glimmer in the blackness…with the closest and brightest being only visible as tiny points of brighter light.
At this particular, unnamed, lonely point in the vast emptiness, there was a brief shimmer as a tiny vessel streaked past in the half-real/half-unreal pseudo-velocity of an operating “Kreismann Drive”. The glowing shimmer of it’s wake making a long trail that stretched thousands of kilometres across the void behind it as photons impacting the super-light drive-fields were accelerated into tachyonic states, then faded into other realities. Seconds later, there was no visible trace of the vessel’s passing; all had returned to the deep cold and emptiness of Space once more….

http://www.eonet.ne.jp/~daljinspace/Her_Stuff_files/image022.jpg

The vessel was the Federation Star-Ship “Tien Fei”, designed & built for exploration and re-contact missions on the fringes of Known Space. Compared to the huge behemoths of the past, the slower-than-light Colonyships of a century ago, the Tien Fei was minuscule as it massed a mere 381 metric tonnes. Yet, with it’s hybrid anti-matter/fission power-plant, and it’s Kreismann Drive, the Tien Fei could cross a hundred trillion kilometres of interstellar space in less than a year. Her simple, smooth, saucer-shaped and golden-chromed durallium-armoured hull was protected by powerful energy-shields, and hid an amazing amount of firepower. She was as much a vessel of war, as she was a vessel of exploration. For surveys of planetary systems, the Tien Fei had numerous advanced scientific instruments, probe-missiles, and a reactionless Spinner-Drive that could land the vessel on any solid surface or propel her to orbit in less than a minute from an Earth-sized world.
She was nearing the end of her first mission, which was planned to be six months in total. The crew of the FSS Tien Fei had discovered hundreds of previously unexplored planets, and surveyed dozens; a few were interesting enough to be landed upon. With only one more month to go on the current tour, they had disappointedly discovered only two barely habitable planets, and found no trace of any human settlements. It had been their hope to learn the fate of the “Nova”; an STL Colonyship sent to this region of space only a few decades ago, and only ten years before the invention of the Kreismann Drive.
They were about to make a startling discovery; the crew of the FSS Tien Fei were going to encounter adventure, excitement, danger, and mystery on the…
...Hot Wet Planet




The feel is supposed to be 1950s sci-fi movies meets Japanese Hentai erotica.

Description of the Hot Wet Planet;
An otherwise unknown, unexplored & very remote planet. The planet is mostly tropical jungle, swamps, and thousands of small seas. There are twin stars; a red giant sun and tiny white sun that orbit each other closely, as well the planet is ringed and has multiple moons. The sky when it can be seen is richly coloured and always varied. The planet is beautiful, wild, and overabundant in fantastic scenery, flora, and fauna. At night, streaks of fire are sometimes visible in the heavens, against a backdrop of a faintly seen arch in the sky...the planet's rings, and the reflected pinkish light of several moons...including a pair which rotate around each other like partners in a waltz. There is no pollution except what nature made, so the stars in the sky are a glittering field, like millions of tiny diamonds scattered upon a sea of black velvet that never ends... The explorers must contend with the alien lifeforms of the planet as well, and unusual environmental phenomena, many of which seem to be almost designed to sexually molest human females (& occasionally males) much in the manner of 1950s/60s B-grade Sci-Fi films, but as if remade by a gang of Japanese hentai fans. In addition, some unidentifiable element of the environment is changing the survivors, eroticizing them, making the females constantly horny yet more shy at the same time, more youthful, more like a guy's wet-dream fantasy, and removing all their body hair from their neck to their toes. The guys get bigger dicks, muscles, a penchant for crude violence, and that sort of thing, as if the planet was turning the men into barbarian warriors....even the nerdy types who'd prefer to find a cure for their steadily dumbed-down intellects and the call of yobbo behaviour. In the background, unknown at least at first to the explorers, the planet's higher lifeforms have a simple mass-mind that is using it's powerful psionics to mentally influence and sometimes dominate the humans in lecherous ways, having it's strongest effect on the females (who gain the benefit of being occasionally protected, & subtly forewarned about real dangers); many of the younger (or younger appearing) women discover they are incapable of wearing underwear, or any kind of pants, or even anything more covering than an indecently short tunic or mini-dress. Very strong-willed humans, are slowly learning that they can influence the environment and others...perhaps they're psionics, or this is the birth of magic on the planet. Oh, this is fantasy, so no menstruation and all that nuisance... What will the humans find, and what will happen to them?


To keep things very clear, and easy, the following also apply;

# It is assumed that there are additional crew-members in Hypersleep “Suspended Animation” onboard the Tien Fei. If a player allows their character to die for some reason, they may introduce a replacement character fulfilling the same task/duties.

# I've decided to avoid the problems of threads interacting with each other, as the older HWP thread went a very different direction from what I would've liked while I was unable to post for a very long, long time. Let's see what happens this time and how the planet turns out.

# The Tentacle Monsters players of Hot Wet Planet may also introduce Tentacle Monster BEFMs onto the Hot Wet Arrival thread as well. One each, usual rules (replacing when it dies etc…)

# The Tien Fei will not immediately arrive at the Hot Wet Planet; instead there will be about 2 weeks of character interaction beforehand.


Remember this is a CLOSED THREAD, PM Lovelynice before trying to join

Also see the….
Hot Wet Arrival OOC

Ted Yamamoto

A blinding headache, wrenching stomach cramps, the clear odorless gases that makes stasis a reality clears, and I pull myself from the chamber that serves as berthing area as well. My rest cycle completed, the soft blue glow lets my eyes adjust, my head clear.

Coffee

I always yearned for coffee or what passed for it when coming out of stasis. Coffee was one things that the food replicatetors could not get quite right. No matter it was the only game in town. I made my way to the galley my ear attuned to the almost imperceptible hum of machinery all seemed Jake.


Ted Yamamoto came from a restless family, they had been for centuries. The first of his ancestors, in that distant past of myth and legend, lived on a fabled, fantasy, world called earth. Their ancestral home was the kingdom of Japan, they traveled east over a great sea to a new land to become warrior Lords of the kingdom of America.

Ted was brought up like so many others on the outer fringes of the Solar Federation on one of the outpost colonies. Ted saw no future as a colonist so he had requested training as a pilot, yet it was decided that he was more suited to Engineering, and was trained secondarily as a Cargo Specialist. Two years after graduating from the Academy he was still a 3rd Engineer/ Cargo Specialist. Ted was desperately in Love with Amy Bauer and they had plans to marry, yet this was impossibility until he made 2nd Engineer.

Ted had jumped at the opportunity for the posting on the “F.S.S. Tien Fei” it meant promotion to 2nd Engineer/Cargo Specialist. Amy and Ted both knew that exploration for worlds suitable for colonization was dangerous, yet it offered them the best chance to fulfill their plans to marry. What was a few years if it made a life together possible.

Ted was tall; well build, with ginger hair and teasing hazel eyes. His rugged looks where known to turn the ladies heads. His personality was easy going, even if he was a bit shy. People liked him and found him easy to talk to. He was also the type of officer that when things got really rough you wanted him around; at 28 he was brash and fearless.


My hands wrapped around a mug of coffee my gaze blank as I looked out the observation port into the black abyss that we traveled through. So far the mission was not the exciting voyage of exploration I had hoped for, just a series of disappointing class M-3 planets full of nothing. Useless samples stowed for the science officer to pick over at leisure, and endless series of sleep cycles and work cycles.

FSS Tien Fei not the corsair of discovery, but my prison of boredom.


2nd Engineer Ted Yamamoto wizard of the “Kreismann Drive", damn thing never broke down……... cargo specialist, what cargo there was nothing out here but barren rock piles……….. RIGHT…………. glorified go-for was more like it


My thoughts half muttered.


“Damn”

I ran my fingers through my ginger hair and lazily stretched my long lank frame

“Damn I’d sell my soul for a bit of excitement.”

Lt. Commander Melchior Locke

The most remarkable thing about the Tien Fei was not it's amazing Kriesmann Drive, nor the staggering powerful weapons crammed into the smooth hull, nor the potent shields that protected it from space debris and the occasional attack. It was that the ship sang. Or so it seemed to Melchior as he clambered through the small maintenance tubes that ran through the hull. The thrum of the engines was the backbeat, with the hum of life support systems as a counterpoint. The chirps and blips of machinery made a surprisingly recognizable and sweet melody as the lovely vessel glided effortlessly through space.

The newly promoted Chief Engineer hunkered down in front of of a panel, taking a moment to scan over the circuit boards that confronted him. The astrogation system was having problems...while the replacement of the parts would take time, it was necessary to jury-rig a repair for now in case they had to shift to FTL before the repairs were complete.

Melchior shifted nervously...there was a perfect solution here, but he wasn't sure if the Captain would like it. He knew that the previous Chief Engineer had been an old assocaite of the Captain, and that he would have to be more than perfect to gain any trust in the older man's eyes. Or any of the other command crew...he knew they all looked at him as a rookie, a usurper, a punk kid. He had to show them otherwise.

He tapped the comm unit on his uniform, "Lt. Czuwara, I need you to shut off power to relays C55 through C81." "The navcomp is pretty shot, so I'm going to have to cannabilize some parts from the weapons systems to get it working."

The somewhat dubious voice of his subordinate came back, he could almost see the suspect expression on the blonde woman's face. "Aye, sir." "Power shut down, sir." The song of the ship quieted, as if in mourning for what was now shut off. There was a pause. "Sir, do you think the Captain will approve of this?"

Melchior sighed as he went to work, hands moving to thier task instinctively, connections broken and remade almost casually as he worked. "We don't have much choice." "These systems are the only thing other than the Drive that is as complex, and the Captain did say that it was top priority to get this working again." Hmmm...maybe if he patched this through the seldom used Kilgrain Batteries he wouldn't have to draw as much power from the beam cannons as he thought. Sure they were usually for planetary use, but they would work fine in space, though he'd have to patch them into the grid. "Don't worry, I'm sending him a report immediately, if he doesn't approve, we won't be vulnerable for long." "Not like we'll be unarmed either...just a little worse shots." The delicate process should have taken an hour, but luckily some fo the original parts were usuable. Melchior grinned at the discovery, his luck won out again. "All right, I'm done." he heard her slight grunt of surprise. "Get the power through again, then check the diagnostics."

The song became louder around him as energy surged back into the jury-rigged system. It was different now, a more robust quality to it. "Report."

"Aye, sir." "Navcomp is back online at 100%, fire control systems have reduced accuracy by only 10%, and the weapons systems...are still all active!"

Melchior crowed, "It worked!" "Excellent!" He smirked as he replaced the panel, "No way can anyone complain about this." "Now all I have to do is replace the bad astrogation engine and my first real task is an undeniable success," he thought. "Lt. Czuwara, please transmit the report to the Captain's comp, with my compliments." "Then get the new astrogation engine ready, we'll be a while putting it in."

"Aye, aye, sir." There was a note of admiration in her voice. In his mind's eye, he could see the curvy woman standing at her console, hands clasped in front of her, eyes shining with respect for him. Maybe the repair work wouldn't be that bad...the two of them in the narrow confines of the ship's innards...brushing against one another, "accidently" feeling the firmness of her figure. The image sprang fully formed into his brain, and his eyes went wide as the mini-fantasy quickly played itself out in his imagination. Almost immediately, he felt a slight pain, then warmth as a crimson flow started from his nose. "Damn it!." He pulled a cloth from his workbelt, pinching off the bleeding nose. "Not again..."

Lt. Grace Tanaka

Grace woke up slowly and comfortably, removing the golden sleep-band from her head as she did so, but Grace was reticent to climb out of her sleeping berth. The berth also doubled as a stasis-berth when required, but fortunately Grace didn’t need to go into the induced cold-hibernation of stasis very often. Like everyone else, Grace didn’t enjoy stasis much, it always made her feel more tired when she awoke, and sometimes she’d awake with a headache when coming out of stasis.

Stretching with both arms out, she sighed, then glanced at the data-screen on the wall, and was satisfied to see that “Mel” reported that the Astrogation systems had been fixed while she slept. The data-screen appeared old-fashioned, but that was because it was better to use tougher, proven technology then the potentially unstable, unreliable quantum-boards and positronic-shunts that were the latest flash-tech. They were too far, a long way too far, from civilized Known Space to get any major replacement parts if something vital broke-down.

She brushed back her pinkish-blonde hair, and climbed out of the berth then stripped off her pink flannel pyjamas under which she wore wide-sided knickers, but no brassiere. Though the air was chilly, she took them off as well, revealing the dark, soft fine hairs of "down there". She had much less than most women her age, she had discovered in the communal showers at the Academy. Her breasts were nicely pear shaped, perty tipped in the cool air, but Grace was disappointed in their size as most of her friends were larger breasted.

Grace pulled on some clean underwear up her long legs, put on a brassiere, and began brushing her short hair. She probably should use a depilatory under her arms again soon, Grace thought, as she noticed the tiny bristles with irritation. Then Grace dressed in her silvery uniform short skirt & long-sleeved top. The silvery slippers that she put on her feet had concealed electromagnets inside their soles that could be activated in case the ship’s simulated gravity-generators failed.

As she prepared for the start of her shift, Grace considered the “day” ahead. She quickly calculated the FSS Tien Fei’s current location as being 24 trillion kilometres from their next destination, a small K5 orange star that was only classified on the charts as “KV689”. According to telescopic observation, KV689 should have a planetary system, and it was probably the best chance they’d have of discovering a habitable planet in this region. At least that’s what the scientists at Star-Force HQ had written in their reports.

Oddly though, no slower-than-light starprobes had ever reported back from there. They may have been lost, and that worried Grace. Hidden dangers lurking in space always worried her. The possibility of a dark companion object orbiting close-by KV689 had been ruled out, but…

Well, Grace thought, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

She then headed upto the bridge, the automatic door closed behind her after she walked out.

Ted Yamamoto

The gentle tapping at Ted's wrist reminded him that it was time to head to the main engineering control station and assume his duties as Engineering watch officer.

He smiled with satisfaction as the 3rd engineer Lt. Czuwara gave her report, she ran a tight watch. He reviewed the engineering log his eyes literally flying over the screens as they flashed past

Sir Lt. Commander Locke is in maintenance tubes

The routine of the watch relief was interrupted

"Lt. Czuwara, I need you to shut off power to relays C55 through C81." "The navcomp is pretty shot, so I'm going to have to cannibalize some parts from the weapons systems to get it working."

"Lt. Czuwara I assume the watch."

Stepping to the command console I quickly shut down power relays C55 and C81.

"Sir C55 and C81 secured and read negative flow."

As the engine room watch went about their duties I selected the secure coms link of the Command and Control circuits.

"Chief so you still like crawling around the tubes like you where a student engineer?"

Melchior

The brown haired man smirked as his comm blipped on again, "Chief, so you still like crawling around the tubes like you were a student engineer?" Ted Yamamoto's voice drawled through the link.

"Mr. Yamamoto, I wasn't aware it was that late." Rats...well, he could forget any close quarters with Czuwara now. "I guess I haven't gottten used to making people do my work yet, I have this lingering sense that I should do my share of the actual labor." He lowered himself into the slightly larger tube that led to Engineering. "I'm sure it's just a temporary illness that contact with the command officers will cure."

His eyes looked over circuits as he went throught he tube, hmmm it looked like Grace had ended her sleep cycle. Maybe he should head up to the bridge and see how she liked the repairs. He opened the maintenance hatch, dropping the distance to the ground rather than using the ladder.

Melchior brushed off his uniform as he walked over to the console, tossing a brief salute to Ted Yamamoto. "Besides, in the tubes, you can hear the ship sing." "All the sounds our pretty lady makes come together in a very fine tune, if you care for such things." He didn't say that he had to do it, had to prove that he could perform all aspects of the job, to show he was at least as good as his predecessor. "I know we have the astrogation engine to replace, has anything else been submitted?" "Any other problems detected?"

"Mr. Yamamoto, I wasn't aware it was that late." ............................"I guess I haven't gottten used to making people do my work yet, I have this lingering sense that I should do my share of the actual labor."............................. "I'm sure it's just a temporary illness that contact with the command officers will cure."

Ted Yamamoto, laughed.


"Chief Mr. Yamamoto is it I see the command staff college has had it's effect already the next thing is now more wild evenings in the junior officer's mess."

Ted Yamamoto Melchior Locke went back a long way and this was not the first time they had served together but it was the first time Melchior was chief engineer and that in itself changed their relationship.


Ted settled down to the routine of the watch readings, log entries, equipment status. yes the world of automation and redundant back up systems left little chance for error or mistake but it nagged at the back of his mind that they where so short handed on spares that they where cannibalizing one system to keep another operational.

Prepare for the worst, hope for the best and remain highly flexible inbetween."

Such was always the lot of engineering on these deep space voyages.

Lt. Brian North

Lieutenant Brian North sat back from the work station in his quarters, hand on chin in the classic thinking pose as he analyzed various data from the last planet the Tien Fei had surveyed. His holovid flickered, signaling that power must have been rerouted from something. Must be that new chief engineer playing around in the tubes.

North’s brow furrowed as he backtracked over information on rock formations from the M-3. A holo of the rock shimmered in front of him, as well as a color coded graph depicting the concentration of elements within the rock. Arsenic 30%, Sulfur 20%, Iron 40%, 10% misc. He tapped a button on the projector and the rock rotated, showing the different placements of the elements within the rock. The rock read like the fifty other samples he’d looked at.

Brian stifled a yawn. He hated doing planet reports.

Absently he typed land condition information into the computer. Terrain: All samples read positive for high levels of arsenic, iron, and sulfur. Atmospheric conditions: Nitrogen 40%, Iodide 20%, Chlorine 20%, Hydrogen 5%, Misc. gasses 15%. Severe Atmospheric pressure systems. Comments: Possible mining planet due to high levels of Fe. Conditions: Uninhabitable.

He fought off another yawn. Absently he loosened the collar of his uniform. As much as he liked finally being on a ship, the work he had to do as science officer was rather dull. Analyze this, take samples of that, record it all and store it until they got back in range to send the data. It wouldn’t be so bad of a job if they’d come across an interesting planet. Analyzing and surveying waste planets was really just a waste of time in his book. But he had to admit it was still better than the academy.

He started typing again, entering more extraneous data that he doubted Star Command would even look at. Movement caught his eye as the holoprojector flickered again, then faded to green and shimmered out. He quirked an eyebrow at the machine. If power from his sector was rerouted, he should have been notified. He flicked the power switch on the ornery machine, but it refused to yield up a hologram. He tapped the projector in frustration, then turned back to his console and raised engineering.

*Beep* “This is Lt. North to engineering. Have any reroutes been made to my sector? The damn holoproj went out on me.”

Melchior

He was about to retort to Ted when the comm beeped and Lt. North's irritated voice came through. "Damn...I didn't expect him to be working at this hour."

Melchior sighed and tapped his comm, "Locke here, Lt. North." "We did have to reroute your system so we could do a temporary fix on the astrogation system." "The lines are back up now, so there shouldn't be any trouble." "The computer should have remembered your data, so nothing will be lost." He paused, not sure of how far his postion extended. In theory, the two were equals on command staff. "Lt. North, I thought you didn't come on duty for another hour...you know the Doctor won't be pleased if she finds out."

Tapping the comm off for a moment, he gave Ted a wry smile. "Ted, I can't call you by name on the comms, you know what the brass would think of that."

Turning the channel to North back on, he spoke again. "I can tell you that once we replace the astrogation engine, which I expect to have finished around 1800, I'll be pulling your power offline again to get the normal routes restored."

Indira Patel, Comms Officer

Indira, a dusky beauty from Nu India, had signed on for duty on the Tien Fei at the start of this mission. As such, she was very much the most junior of the senior officers which suited her fine and freed her from the burden of command. She stationed herself at the communications console, monitoring regional space for any form of transmission that might indicate the presence of sentient life. None. None.. None... Space was as dead as a rookie's brain but she refused to give up until the Captain ordered her to.

Nothing.

Empty space flowed by, punctuated with the occassional comms buzz from a hyperspace vortex but otherwise bland. She ran her hands delicately across the controls, scanning the full range of frequencies from infra-red to ultra-violet on the electromagnetic spectrum and from subspace to superspace bands. The mission could not be a failure, there had to be a useful planet out there.

And then.

A high pitched scream echoed through her head from the earset strapped about her head. A flash of light filled her viewscreen before it went dark. The sound, the static, the variance of space all disappeared leaving a dead console before her.

"Engineering?" She called into her intercom. "Master Lieutenant Commander Locke? This is Officer Patel, communications... did something just happen to the subsystems? My console is dead..."

OOC: slight liberty taken, since Locke was expressing that the captain wouldn't like what he was doing - an electrical glitch wiping out comms would certainly give us a chance to crashland

Lt. Brian North

"Lt. North, I thought you didn't come on duty for another hour...you know the Doctor won't be pleased if she finds out."

Brian grinned and thumbed the comm unit on his console. “Just tryin to get the report finished for the last hunk of rock we passed, sir. Apparently it’s not good enough for me to just tell them its uninhabitable, they need fifty or so pages detailing why.”

He reached over and flicked the switch on the holoprojector. The fan whirred to life and emerald green motes of light shot out of the display mirror, slowly rebuilding the hologram of the rock sample he’d been staring at just minutes before.

He opened another channel to engineering. “Everything looks good. And thanks for the heads up about 1800. North out.”

Gunny Sgt Williams

He had awoken from his stasis sleep and cracked his neck...for a Space Marine Stasis was the worst place to be...you were alseep and not combat ready. He looked over at the other Marines asleep and shook his head.

He rose and got dressed...the typical Space Marine Tattoo emblazoned on his right bicep...the tattoo was remiscent of the older US Marine's except now instead of the earth being overlooke by an eagle it was a galaxy, the eagle perched atop what was the 'sun', an anchor and a gun beneath the galaxy. He had gotten the tattoo at age 13 when he graduated from his colonies military camp. Then later came the diffrent tattoo's from being out on town with other SM's, drunk and bored he had gotten both arms covered in a multitude of ancient tribal tattooing. As he finished getting dressed he headed towards the bridge....knowing whoever was in charge would want to know their Marine was up and moving.

One thing he hated about these ships was the fact they were built for the scientists not a nearly 6'5 tall Marine. He continually had to duck at spots so not to bash his skull against pipes. He entered the bridge and turned seeing the second in command Lt. Tanaka at the bridge. He came to attention and saluted her his voice deep. "Ma'am Gunny Williams reporting in" The green uniform given to all Marines was somewhat tight on him, he was constantly hearing the giggles of some female crew members on other ships when he was in uniform since it did show off his muscled frame.

Captain MacLeod

he fired off a few more quick jabs, and a snap kick at the heavy bag, before getting cleaned up. His exercise equipment weqs considered a bit archaic by some, but they were the best thing for him to get the blood pumping, in his opinion.

He rolled his shoulders, and his neck, loosening up the joints.

It hadn't been to long for him, in stasis, due to his peculiar habit of setting a 'wake up call' for every few weeks. The ship was fully automated, of course, but he always felt the need to check up on it.

He washed quickly, and left his quarters, acknowledging the salutes of the few crewmen who were awake this early in the mission. Most of them were new to him, and him to them. He wasn't happy about it, either. A raw crew made mistakes. And mistakes could get them all killed.

He made his way into the lift, and punched the keypad for the bridge.

And the lights flickered.

What the...

He clenched his jaw, and locked his hands behind his back. It could be nothing.... but he hadn't survived this long by expecting things to go his way.

Lt. Grace Tanaka

Being such a small vessel, it wasn’t far to the bridge, but the circular design of the FSS Tien Fei meant that the main corridors on each deck were also circular. Some of the crew took advantage of this design by taking long runs around the ship, but Grace only saw it as a nuisance. As she approached the thick armoured doors to the bridge, the double-lock automatic doors opened in front of her. Then they closed with a quiet hiss rapidly behind her again.

Indira Patel, the Comms/Sensors Officer was concentrating on her monitoring of the sensor arrays from her station as usual, and barely noticed Grace entering the bridge. Grace shrugged; she wasn’t going to disturb Indira while she was obviously so involved in her duties. Maybe Indira had found something of interest out there in the dark void. Sensors were so vital to a starship’s operations that even the most minor oddity needed to be observed and analyzed.

Grace went to her own station and sat down to make a few checks. Not surprisingly, not everything was operating fully yet. Navcomp was working again, but the Astrogation-engine was off-line for repairs. The extreme cold of the void often resulted in liquid helium collecting in some parts of the ship, and it was a nuisance…not as dangerous as it once was to the older starships…but still a worry. The stuff acted in such odd ways, crawling up surfaces for example, and then vaporizing explosively if it reached a hot spot before being gassed-out by the safety-systems. Just such an incident had caused a burn-out in a whole swathe of the Astrogation-related systems only a couple of shifts ago, and the repairs were still ongoing.

Grace did what checks that she could on the Tien Fei’s current position, running a series of calculations through the Navcomp. The answers weren’t exactly as expected…which was a little strange, but perhaps all was okay. The difference in position was only a tiny fraction from what it should’ve been. A mere 1504.43mm difference; just over a metre and a half.

"Ma'am Gunny Williams reporting in", said the Weapons Officer as he entered the bridge.

“Oh, good…”, Grace replied, barely looking up from her consoles, “You better check your station, sergeant, as the engineers having been playing around with the innards of the ship for the past sixteen hours…Who knows what else has gone wrong since.”

She smiled at him, then studied the calculated position again.

Yes, definitely we’re ever so slightly in the wrong place, Grace thought, I wonder why?

The captain would likely think it a minor point, since they had travelled across 17 trillion kilometres of empty space. He'd probably think she was being overly fussy on detail.

Finally, Grace decided to ask Officer Patel to do a position-check relative to the local stars…

“Patel?”, Grace asked out loud, “Could you do a….”

Then the lighting on the bridge flickered, and Indira Patel practically threw her headset off her head as a scream of static noise that was loud enough to hurt even Grace’s ears burst from the headset’s tiny speakers. The Comms/Sensors boards went dead.

“Oh, oh”, Grace said in a soft voice, “That’s not good…”

Captain Lance MacLeod

"You're damned right, that's not good," Lance growled as he stepped onto the bridge. He walked briskly to his chair, and sat.

"Open shipwide comm, Patel."

The communications officer nodded and complied.

"Attention, Tien Fei. I hope you all enjoyed your naps, but sleep time is over. I want all departments prepared for battle drills in 30 minutes. Captain MacLeod, out."

That should set some teeth on edge. If anyone couldn't be ready by then... they would have to explain to him why. He tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair and studied the bridge. He knew some of the officers on board, others purely from their files, like the New Chief Engineer. The boy had better be up to snuff, or I'll toss his ass out the nearest airlock.

He shook his head, not for the first time lamenting the loss of James "Jax" Jackson, the last Chief he had worked with. A good man to die so young. The new guy had better realize what's expected of him...

Finally, he broke the silence on the bridge. "Who wants to be the one to tell me what the hell is wrong with my ship?"

He strode over to his console, beside Indira's console....the weapons still up and on-line he did a quick scan of each weapon's ammo and status. Nodding in satisfaction he rolled his neck, looking over at Indira Patel, he felt lucky...first of all if they were on battle drill then he would spend much longer next to that dusky beauty.

He then went back to his console typing in command filters into the weapons system seeing if anything was taken too much from HIS weapons...he growled. 'Captain, I have a .86 decrease in Aft Starboard guns response time to commands. Trying to compensate firing arcs for the decrease in time'

Lt. Grace Tanaka

Grace turned and quickly saluted the captain as he entered the bridge, then she rushed to return the vessel to manual flight-control.

"PREPARE FOR ALL STOP", she announced loudly to the rest of the bridge, "Otherwise, we'll be flying blind...shutting down the Kreismann Drive now, sir."

The "All-Stop" alert rang through-out the Tien Fei, and everyone braced themselves just in case there was a rough transition. The thrumming deep hum of the drive rapidly wound-down...

Indira Patel, Comms/Sensors

Indira saluted, perhaps needlessly as the Lieutenant was not looking at her when she ordered the all stop, then she turned back to her dead scanners. All comms channels, all sensors, were still dead. After removing the headphones she had heard the warning that engineering had been doing something, and thought that must be why they had not responded to her call. They must already know the ship had malfunctioned and were working on it.

She stretched, letting out the tension of holding her position for so many hours, and felt her shaking hand brush up against something. Turning around her head to see what it was she realized her stretching fingers had almost curled around the calf of the sergeant next to her. She sat up, retracting the hand at once and blushing furiously, unseen beneath her dark complexion,

"My apologies Master Sergeant Williams," she said, bowing her eyes meekly. "I did not see you there."

Melchior

"Hellfire!" Lt. Patel's voice had barely left the comm before he was clambering back up into the maintenance shafts. "Ted, isolate the comm systems, now!" "We can't let this cascade!" "Then I need a damage report!" "Transmit it to work station 047."

He raced through the tubes, mind frantically shifting through possabilities until her got to the section that led to the powerful communication systems. Great arcs of electricity lanced through the vertical shaft, illuminating the darkness and filling the air with the acrid scent of ozone. "Holy..."

He checked a nearby unit that was feeding him the diagnostics from Ted. Well...it looked like only the main comm system was in bad shape, the backups were still viable. Ted had acted fast enough to keep the damamge from spreading, Melchior made a note to make a note of that in his next personnel report. It looked as though the Kilgrain Battery he'd tapped for the astrogation system earlier had experienced a critical overload. The other systems had been able to get their grounds online in time, but not comms for some reason. Of course, the only reason the battery would go up like that was that it hadn't been properly maintained...which was the responsability of Ted's predecessor, now dead in the same accident that had given Melchior his unasked for promotion.

Mel sighed and tapped his comm "Lt. Yamamoto, I'm at the entrance to the comm systems but the ground hasn't activated." "I've got a lot of loose power running around here." He pulled out a few tools, working on opening a section of the tube wall. "I'm going to try and ground it out...send the captain the damage report and advise him of my action."

He pulled the still inactive ground device free of the wall. It was a thick cable, placed here and there with mini-transformers, which would scale down the voltage of any current that went through them. When it was used as it was intended...which was not how he was going to use it. Basically if he lowered the cable, it should soak up most of the arcs and allow him to get past the danger zone. Once he was at the comm system, which happened to be next ot eh sensor array and shield generator, he could funnel the excess power into the shields and end the surge. Of course, if anything went wrong he'd be fried to a cinder. Looking down the shaft at the sizzling blue arcs of power, he felt a bit of a knot in his stomach.

"Remember...you're the lucky one." Melchior took a few deep breaths...trust in the luck, believe in it. He ran hand through his spiky brown hair, rolled his shoulders and then smiled. He cast the cable into the void, hitting the manual activation as he did so. It whined to life, the flaring arcs craching into it. THe transformers glowed bright yellow as power surged into them, the cable shaking as it attempted to contain more than its capacity. Melchior started to clamber down the ladder. He felt as though he moved in slow motion as the tramsformers began to glow a cherry red.

He was about halfway down when the first one burst. Jagged red hot metal showered down amidst a burst of sparks, the arcing beginning again. Melchior leapt off the ladder, letting artificial gravity do the rest. As he fell, he heard the pop of one transformer after another. Down he fell, the renewed stench of ozone telling him that the lethal arcs were chasing him down the tube. Just before he touched down, the last transformer burst, an errant bolt of electrivity catching Melchior in the small of the back. His entire body jerked and spasmed, tiny arcs cracking over his skin. He thought he screamed but his rebellious muscles didn't permit it. Stinging, burning pain blew his senses to flinders so much that he did not even feel the impact of hitting the lower tier. He lay there, smoke rising from hs prone form.

After a few moments he stirred, slowly pulling himself up. Bloodshot eyes looked up to where the arcing electricity had resumed its deadly blockade of the tunnel. He laughed weakly, "Made it...luck..saved me again..." He crawled the rest of the way to the console that commanded the surrounding systems. He tapped his comm as he prepared the sequnece of events. "Locke to bridge." "Captain, We've isolated the problem and contained it." "I have a lot of excess energy that I need to get rid of though." "We can channel it through the shields, since they're close, but I'll need Sgt. Wiliams to activate them."

Lt. Brian North/Science Officer

Brian glanced up to the speaker in his quarters. He sighted as the captain laid out his orders for battle drills, and just as the captain stopped speaking, the power in his entire room went out.

Brian glanced around in the dark, dim lighting from the running lights that outlined the perimeter of the room his only means of seeing anything. He swore as tried to hail the bridge on his console, but the power was out completely. Then Tanaka’s voice rang out over the comm system for full stop.

What the hell’s going on? He thought to himself as he braced against the console. He felt the ship lurch as the engines powered down. The captain must be staging a crisis drill.

Absently he tried to communicate with the bridge again, but the attempt rendered the same results. “Fuck! Guess I’ll have to walk.”

He carefully pushed back from his work station in his quarters, trying to avoid the various furniture that was scattered about the cramped space as he made for the door. He approached the door at full stride and just about walked right into it as the auto opener failed to kick in.

He swore again in the darkness of his quarters, reaching for the manual override to the door. He slid a panel out of the way on the right hand side of the door, then pushed a button that unlocked the door. A sliver dim light shone into the room. Brian pulled a lever and the door slid open a bit more. He released the lever and put both hands on the door and pushed, forcing it open.

He walked out into the hall, which was as dimly lit as his quarters, with a strange humming sound coming from the corridor floor. He made for the bridge, and the lights were on just past his sector. He checked his watch, noting that it was not 1800 hours yet.

He turned down the corridor and toward the main door of the bridge. The locks clicked and slid open at his hesitant approach, and he was greeted by chaos, with each of the officers reporting various discrepancies in various systems throughout the ship, with the captain standing over it all like a god.

“Captain.” North nodded to the man and made his way toward his station next to Lt. Tanaka. He called over his shoulder to the captain. “I’m sure you’ve probably been notified of this, but power is out completely in sector 7. Even the doors don’t work.” He sat at his console on the bridge, bringing up simultaneously a systems report and the course data. He blinked as the systems report showed sensors down, then blinked again as he noted that the course data was off from what the initial course set was.

As North was the Science Officer, his primary duties were to collect the data from all the planets they surveyed and report on any scientific phenomena that occurred to the ship while in transit from those planets. During battle, his role was advisory, to be around to render advice when it was needed. He pulled up all the data he thought may be relevant to the situation at hand, then went back to reviewing the systems report.

Ted Yamamoto

*Beep* “This is Lt. North to engineering. Have any reroutes been made to my sector? The damn holoproj went out on me.”

I was just reaching for the comms console when the Chief leand over my shoulder and answered North's call

Locke here, Lt. North."........................."We did have to reroute your system so we could do a temporary fix on the astrogation system.".................. "The lines are back up now, so there shouldn't be any trouble.".......................... "The computer should have remembered your data, so nothing will be lost.'

The chief paused there was a fleeting flash of doubt on his face.

"Lt. North, I thought you didn't come on duty for another hour...you know the Doctor won't be pleased if she finds out."

He taped off the coms link then leaned a bit closer.

"Ted, I can't call you by name on the comms, you know what the brass would think of that."

A wry smile spread across hs face. I gave it my best feffort to keep a strait face and with all the mock solemnity the moment deserved shot the Chief my very best plebe cadet salute.

"Aye, Aye Chief!"

A sly wink and a roguish smile.

Then all hell, started to break lose a call from coms and the all the subsystems went crazy.

"Attention, Tien Fei. I hope you all enjoyed your naps, but sleep time is over. I want all departments prepared for battle drills in 30 minutes. Captain MacLeod, out."

"Chief the skipper don't sound pleased waht did you do let all the grimleins out?"


He was off in a heart beat headed back down the tubes soon his voice link was up on the DC circuit.

Lt. Yamamoto, I'm at the entrance to the comm systems but the ground hasn't activated." "I've got a lot of loose power running around here." He pulled out a few tools, working on opening a section of the tube wall. "I'm going to try and ground it out...send the captain the damage report and advise him of my action."

"On it chief and I am parelling the load so we don't drop power or fry your ass down there ................ loads blanced..........Dive relays C1 through C10 AOK."

The crackle the surge the rush of energy floode the control statiion and I was half way down the jeffer's tube when I held. made the inital reports to the old man and turned there watch over to my second

I was at his side half pulling half dragging the Chief from the tubes his uniform was charred his hair standing on end and he was allready on his personal command link to the Old Man.>


"Chief you ok?............"

He felt the brush of Indira's hand over his calf and looked towards her smiling softly, His eyes staring at her...he hated how most people were weirded out by his full red left eye, a high contrast to the ice blue right eye. He then turned back to his monitor "No worries...happens when you work close quaters...and it's Gunny Sgt or just Sgt....either is fine." His fingers flew over the keyboard working the shields to on-line status, he increased the power consumption to a higher level so the power surge was used up in feeding the shields.

He at the same time was correcting the slow down in the weapons, whoever messed with his weapon system was gonna meet a pissed of Space Marine when the issues aboard ship were fixed. No one messed with the weapons system without telling the onduty Marine what was going on....yeah he was enlisted and the rest of the ship was officers but still. He looked over his shoulder to the Capt. "Sir the surge is being contained by the increased level of shield power. The slow down in the aft starboard guns has been compensated for, though I do not like the firing arcs needed to cover this slowdown....I would not recommened getting into a conflict with a faster ship with the firing arcs set at their present condition."

Melchior

He smiled, watching the arcs above him die out as the excess power as channeled into the shields. It worked. Not that he had doubted, but the way things had been going...

Then Ted was there, pulling him through the shafts back into Engineering. Mel tried to stand on his own, but his legs were being extremely rebellious. "Too bad...I can't give them a poor...performance review..."

"Ted, I'll be okay." "Just...give me a minute to sit and rest." He gave his old friend a bit of his usual roguish smile. "I should be toast." He laughed, a bit wheezing, but a laugh nonetheless. "I told you I'm the lucky one."

Ted helped him to a chair, and for a moment, Melchior closed his eyes. Rings of Saturn...he just wanted to sleep...but he had duties to attend to. Opening his electric blue orbs, he gave Ted a wry look. "Change the duty logs for Engineering, Ted." "Neither you or I are going off duty until we've got the sensors and astrogation system up and running." "Call off the Doctor for now...it can wait."

He keyed his comm, "Locke to bridge." "Captain, as it currently stands, Lt. Yamamoto and I can have the ship back at peak performance...I estimate the repairs will take 20 standard hours." "I would like to ask permission for stims to be issued to Lt. Yamamoto and myself." He took a breath, wincing as he moved. Every one of his muscles seemed to burn from inside. "Sir, if we do the battle drills as you have requested, I would add another 5 to 10 hours to my repair estimate." "Do you want us to continue to battle stations or begin repairs?"

He ackowledged the scinec officer with a nod of his head, but his mind was elsewhere.

Then came the calls from engineering. His fist clenched, and he punched the armrest console.

"Continue repairs. You've got 15 hours. I'm authorizing stim usage. Don't let me down, Lieutenant," he growled.

He stood, on the bridge, now, his face set in a scowl. Fifteen hours... fifteen hours!

"This is unacceptable." He doidn't speak to anyone in particular, but at each of them, even keeping the comm to engineering open. "Your resumes were impeccable. Each and every one of you came with the highest recommendation. And look at us." His voice was quiet. Hard. "The pride of the fleet, no more than an expensive piece of space debris."

He looked at each of the bridge officers in turn. "I won't have this on my ship. Am I understood?"

Some of them had done well, and he knew he had injured down in engineering, but he would see to that himself. This should never had happened aboard his vessel. Perhaps he had been too easy with them...

No more...

"I'll be in engineering. Tanaka, you have the bridge until I return. I expect a full rundown of estimated repair times. And I want to know what the hell happened.... and cancel the drill."

He looked at Sgt. Williams. "Make weapons a priority. If were going to be stuck here, I don't want to be caught with my pants around my boots if we encounter a hostile. Show me what you can do, Sgt."

He turned and left the bridge without another word.

Lt. Grace Tanaka

The captain was furious, but Grace wasn’t surprised. Without communications, sensors, and the Astrogation Engine still off-line, the Tien Fei was almost completely blind and deaf. What Captain MacLeod said, “This is unacceptable…Your resumes were impeccable. Each and every one of you came with the highest recommendation. And look at us….The pride of the fleet, no more than an expensive piece of space debris." , stung them all.

"I'll be in engineering. Tanaka, you have the bridge until I return. I expect a full rundown of estimated repair times. And I want to know what the hell happened.... and cancel the drill."

Grace saluted and nodded to the captain.

“Yes sir. Understood sir.”, she replied, then turned back to the others on the bridge.

It was obvious that each understood what they had to do. Patel looked a bit lost at her station without a comms/sensors board to monitor, which reminded Grace that without any sensors they were blind. That set her to thinking…

“Sergeant Williams?”, Grace asked the weapons officer out loud, “Did the marine contingent bring any of those new tactical assault packs….I think you call them tacpacks? I believe that the tacpacks have almost a full suite of built-in fractal sensor arrays….”

If they could use a tacpack, Grace thought, Patel might be able to at least monitor something. It wouldn’t be much, but in the emptiness of space the sensor range could be enough for warning of any nearby dangers. Maybe….