Alternative Views: The Starshine Dilemma

[Falconer]

Jason held up his hand as they heard the sound of someone talking. Pointing to Jonas, he made a circular motion, pointed to Jonas, then a side passage.
The scout just looked at him oddly.
Rolling his eyes, he tried again, slower. Nodding in comprehension, Jonas slipped off down the side passage to try to circle around.Jason was forced to press himself into a corner as two men who looked like crew members rushed past.

[Corva]

"What about the embryos, sperm, and eggs?" asked Luna. "What about the wombs? We might as well be dead if we don't have those, because we can't set up a colony without them." She was trembling now. "If they're in an irradiated zone..."

[Jishdefish]

"The front of the ship is safe, they'll make it, their cases are protected too aren't they? Strip out as many of the artificial wombs as you can, put them on the portable stretchers, we won't use them for a while, not until we can establish ourselves more fully, but we will need them." Raf sighed. "I don't like this situation any more than you do, but we can't just leave them in the ship. It might be a nuclear oven in a few months to a couple weeks. It's made to be in space and vent nuclear waste in space, being in an environment is going to clog up it's systems. I'm sure when we activate the emergency lockdown the leakage will be reduced, to what extent really depends on how much damage the ship sustained." He glanced at Luna. "We're going to get through this." We have to, he added to himself.

[Falconer]

Listening at the door, Jason's eyes widened. This was not good. This was not good at all. They needed to get this information back to the colony, fast.

[Pandora]

Leon sighed and shook his head, this would change his plans completly. He turned back to the officer and gave him a troubled look.

Well Oxford it looks like you won't be holding anyone here now. You heard what the captain said. I want everyone to walk out of here with something. We need all the food, water, and medical supplies everyone can carry out. Use scouting pack medical bags hazard bags what ever you can find to carry it in, and make sure to try and be quick about it, from what i gather, we don't have a lot of time. Oh, and try to get some of the more muscled people here to carry out lab equipment and plants. Try to get all the fruit producing things and medical herbs if possible. I don't mean to put so much work on you like this, but would you also get the crew from B16 and I67 to do the same and report to their destinations as well Along with the people you find in storage?

Leon was almost begging the man at this point.
sure thing, this is what i was trained to do son, take orders. You arn't doing asking anything out of the ordinary. Oxford didn't give him much chance to reply after that, because he emediatly started barking orders to those still seated in their cells.

Ok, I've asked everyone to bring what they can. Hopefully that will be enough to help us before cope long enough to establish some kind of settlement.[color=#0000BF] Leon spoke to the com on his wrist.
With this Loen turned back to Erin.
[color=#0000BF]do you want to head for the captain, or do you want to watch then retrive your plants? He asked her sypatheticaly.

[Corva]

"How long till I can get to them?" Luna asked Raf. "The others will carry them out, right? They've got to remember; artifical wombs are the most important. Sperm comes after that, then eggs. Can you tell them that?"

[Jishdefish]

"Here." He handed her the com. "I think you know the extension for your laboratory." Raf heard footsteps coming down the hall through the cracked door.

[Falconer]

Jason began to back away from the door, reaching for his radio to alert the others.

[Ersska]

"My plants," Erin answered Leon. "I know which ones are needed the most. We can't afford to have any valuebles left behind."

[Jishdefish]

The radio responded almost instantly after Jason said his codeword. "Yes? So what's the word, Green Falcon? What have you found out?"

****

Oxford opened the door. "I've been looking for you, eh, captain." He glanced at Luna with her radio.

Rafaelle nodded. "Well, you've found me, what is it?"

"Well..." He glanced at Luna again.

"I'm not keeping secrets from my crew, so spill it, sub-captain."

Oxford straightened and produced a few pieces of folded printer paper from his pocket. "I got this from the kid--You know, the one that you gave the quartermaster's job to?" The sub-commander didn't seem overjoyed with this decision by his tone, but rushed onward before Raf could raise an eyebrow. "This is a map of the planet, apparently the computer spit one out when the holographic display kicked in. There is something you should see."

He now shuffled and un-folded one of the sheets and held it up to the captain's face. "I don't see..."

Oxford pointed. "Look at those. They are gray, square and scattered along the side of the chemical lake. They definitely are not natural outcroppings. And I don't know what to think besides the fact that it seems we're not alone here... captain." Again he said the title as almost an afterthought.

Raf narrowed his eyes. "How do you know they're not natural? Square and gray aren't necessarily unnatural. Some rocks break that way, and the lake may have exposed them by erosion back when it was forming or something. I think you're being paranoid."

The sub-captain stammered, as if he didn't expect to be outspoken by someone younger then him, even if he was a higher rank. "B-but... things being as t-they are shouldn't we consider the possibility? We could be in danger. The colony could be in danger. A leader should be prepared for any possibility."

[Falconer]

OCC: How did Jason say any codeword? He's mute. And on a continuation of that thought, how is he supposed to report in without meeting with someone else?

[Jishdefish]

OOC: Morse Code? I forgot about that disability again, but most radios have a Morse button. So technically he didn't 'say' the codeword, but he can still communicate.

[Falconer]

OCC: They do? Cool.
...Wait... Green Falcon? When did I get that one?

IC: Jason pressed the Morse code button in a specific pattern. The ship appears to be actively leaking radiation, at significant enough levels that the captain has ordered an Abandon Ship move. The crew appears to be fully equipped for colonization, but there is a decent chance that some of their equipment and supplies were ruined by radiation. Jason glanced around, hoping no one had heard him. I believe the captain to be getting desperate. What are my orders?

[Jishdefish]

OOC: You got the name and codeword off-screen.

IC: There was a long pause after he finished transmitting his code; longer than it would normally take to record the dots and dashes and read the message. "The matter of their ship and it's radiation will take some deliberation. Right now your orders are to locate their main computer. It will contain the most information of their original manifest and will also couple with your information to give us a more exact estimation of their current stores and situation. The computer will most likely be unguarded and unoccupied in the cockpit of the ship. It may also be unactivated, and you may have to fix it to gain access."

[Falconer]

Acknowledged. At the thought of getting to fix something, Jason grinned before beginning to make his way forward to the front of the ship.

[Pandora]

that's why we are going to be going with the men carring the plants. You get to boss them around from your chair. S-sound fun?Leon answered Erin back wheeling her behind the officers that had been assigned the duty of escorting the plants to safety.

[Corva]

"Is it safe to enter the ship?" Luna asked Oxford. "I need to reach the embryos. More specifically, the wombs." She remembered what Raf had said. "Please remind them to grap a few canisters of sperm, and some eggs if they can. We need the genetic material."

[Jishdefish]

"It's not cooking in there yet, missy--

"Great idea, Luna." He said, not looking away from Oxford. "To make better use of your time, sub-captian, you can get a Geiger counter from the quartermaster and stay a good 100ft down the hall in front of her, making sure there are no radiation leaks that could damage the genetic material on her way back. If you find a leak, backtrack and find another route."

[Falconer]

OCC: I couldn't tell if any of this was taking place in the control room, so I'll assume its empty. Brackets indicate Jason's input.

IC: Jason closed the door quietly behind him, then turned to the controls. Most of the dials were pointing inexorably to the red areas, with others moving there. Kneeling, the mechanic inserted a small flash drive into a slot and brought up the Head's Up Display. Wit a few deft taps, he entered the Download Log command.
The screen beeped. ACCESS DENIED.
Rolling his eyes, he pulled out a second drive and plugged it in. Within seconds, a hacker virus had infiltrated the keystroke logs and supplied the password, opening the file and copying it to the first drive.
Another warning flashed at him. WARNING. WARNING. REACTOR CORE APPROACHING CRITICAL TEMPERATURE.

Code: Select all

[shutdown reactor]
>>>ERROR: code unknown
[access directory FILE>Command>engine room>shutdown]
search.php?search"shutdown"
directorylisting: "shutdown command"
[EXECUTE COMMAND]

Jason wasn't sure if that had been a good move, but he did not want a nuclear reactor going critical while he was right next to it.

[Corva]

OOC: Surely the technology difference would prevent that from working, Falconer?

IC: "I guess this means I can enter the craft, then?" Luna asked, before opening the door and entering the craft. "They're down this corridor" she said to Oxford. "But I suppose we have to stop off to get a Geiger counter?"

[Falconer]

OOC: All Starfleet vessels are backwards compatible. Same reason why Jason's access code worked.

[Jishdefish]

OOC: They're not really starfleet vessels... Can't really tell you more, but the commands Falconor use will work because the computer technology on this ship is almost the same as current computers in real life. However this one is vastly out of date compared to the Seed. Jason probably is familiar with older computers, just like I'm familiar with the last generation of computers (ie. Windows 98) because in either case we grew up with them. Your access codes... Well, I have an explanation for them too, but I won't reveal it just yet.

IC: "I'll get it and meet you at your laboratory, Miss Luna, if you have no objections," he growled, glancing down another hallway and took down it, in the right direction for the Quartermaster.

When they both left the room to the side of the airlock, Raf sagged against a support beam, letting the heat from his forehead pour into the semi-cool metal. Regaining himself fractionally, he stood and walked outside, around the corner and to the airlock towards the majority of the crew who weren't unloading supplies still, assembled in front of the ship.

[Corva]

"Oh no, no need to call me 'Miss'" Luna said as she wlaked off towards the lab. "Just Luna will do fine."

Reaching her lab, expecting the worst, she took a look inside. Nearly all the equipment had survived, which was good. She stuffed a few cansiters of frozen sperm, eggs, and embryos into her pocket - they were tiny, so each canister represented millions of potential genomes. Glancing around, she said outloud "now, what do I need? Definately a few wombs, at least. And of course the implanation technology, and the stuff needed to unfreeze them."

[Falconer]

OCC: I know, I just used "Starfleet" because I couldn't remember the real fleet name.

IC: With the data safely downloaded and stored, Jason cracked open the door and peered out before making his way from niche to niche towards the door.

[Jishdefish]

Oxford mumbled to himself, skulking down the hallway on his way back from the quartermaster, a bulky old-fashioned Geiger counter stuffed in his fist. He stopped as he saw movement down an adjacent hallway. Stupid kids, fooling around, I'll show 'em. "Hey, you, what were you doing in there?" He stopped someone coming out of the computer storage facility. Odd place seeing as how computers were soon to be obsolete in their new frontier world. Maybe the kid was going to jack a power cell so he could use one of the laptop games for a while longer.

OOC: Remember, most of the Element's crew can understand sign language, including Oxford.