Felicia walks quickly through the halls to get to the Nanotech wing. As she came to the entrance, she asked herself 'Now what?'
This entire sequence of events feels like a dream. She wasn't even in her own body anymore, although judging by what the doctor said, she was still alive and not just uploaded into some sort of computer system.
Hamilton's mind was still set on acquiring the key from the researcher, but he had to contain himself. Force would be ideal in this situation, as his entire team was literally given war machines to casually roam the halls with. Considering that these bodies are fully expendable, it would be prudent to simply trigger the alarms and distract security while the Doctor and perhaps one of the others activated the cargo tunnels.
Anton was just happy to get off this rock. Human rights violations aside, he was curious what had become of Copied-Hamilton. He hoped the doctor kept his word and didn't kill the poor AI discreetly. But considering the lengths the doctor went through to organize the escape, that seemed doubtful.
Dave was still looking for things to pick up and take with him before leaving. So much stuff!
...
As Felicia arrived and delivered the key, Dr. McDonald had already emerged from the closet wearing a protective suit. When he saw Felicia, he ordered everyone to get into the airlock and enter the control room. As the party of five made their way to the storage room where the life support pods were kept, the doctor remarked,
"Your bodies are kept inside this storage room, along side other equipment and life support necessities,"After passing through the emergency airlock protecting the contents of the storage room from the gas, the group sees each and every group member's bodies inside a cylindrical pod, suspended in liquid and poked full of tubes that deliver vital support to keep them alive. Each pod was locked to the ground by a special mechanism linked to the control panel. The panel itself had slots for the five keys.
One by one, the doctor inserted the keys and twisted them. As the last key turned, everything went, once again, completely dark and silent.
Einstein's Cross, Low Orbit, Titan
Feb 3rd, 2398
4:02 GMT
Each one of you wakes up not to the morning light, but to numbers. In the corners of your vision, you spot four sets of dials popping up into existence, each at slightly different times. This new interface builds itself out of numbers and graphs, finally displaying the words
"WELCOME BACK" in the center of your vision when it is finished.
A voice pops in.
"You guys! You're awake! That's... good I was just... waiting for you to come back. The doctor left a voice clip that he told me to share, so have at it."The clip pops up as an option in what appears to be a file explorer. It is called "020398.0402.msg1.wav". Curious, all of you imagine selecting it, playing it independently for each person.
"Hello, I am talking to Hamilton, Anton, Felicia, and Dave. I am recording this because I want to explain what happened. As promised, I brought you to my ship and connected you to the life support grid. Additionally, Copied-Hamilton, whom I nicknamed Alexander Hamilton, has been connected to the ship's computer and is currently roaming the ship through the ventilation grid, which is off for now until you find a permanent solution. As for me? I've decided to give up on working with the military and return to my family on Atlantis. I've left you the ship in orbit over Titan, along with whatever CN credits I had on me, since I won't be needing them anymore.
Some of you may have heard the myths that humanity is a dying race, forced to live under extreme conditions far from ideal. The majority of humans are, indeed, trapped under the ocean inside giant domes. But we are in no way a dying race. Long ago, one gentleman built a coalition between certain governments of the Skylanders and the Ocean Dwellers. This coalition, called simply the Federation, brought humanity into an age of development and unity that it had never seen before. The Federation went to dust after only a couple of years, but its legacy remained an inspiration in the hearts of our people. The Federation built the orbital habitats and rebuilt the GPS network. They also formed the backbone of what is now the Central Navy. I have since lost faith in the Central Navy's ability to reunite mankind, but the fact remains that they are a powerful ally and will no-doubt prove to be useful in some way. However, right now you cannot associate yourselves with them. I've wiped clean all of the identification aboard your ship, and renamed it to something different. You are now anonymous, and you are free to do whatever you like. I do hope, however, that my work in bringing you back was not in vain.
P.S. Felicia brought a report containing prospecting information on the moons of Saturn. I wasn't able to bring your Engineer bodies aboard, so you currently only have the ship and its drone fleet. Alexander Hamilton needs his Cloud to live, so you will need to use the ship's facilities to construct new nanites and bodies after finding some resources. Dr. McDonald out."Moon:
Resources:
Known Hazards:
Moon: Titan
Resources: Hydrocarbons, Water Ice
Known Hazards: Human Settlements, Dense Atmosphere, Cryovolcanism
Moon: Hyperion
Resources: Beryllium, Water Ice (difficult to mine)
Known Hazards: Surface Chasms
Moon: Mimas
Resources: Water Ice, Meteorites
Known Hazards: Surface Chasms
Moon: Enceladus
Resources: Silicon, Iron, Water Ice, Water, Nuclear Fuel (deep)
Known Hazards: Cryovolcanism
Moon: Tethys
Resources: Water Ice
Known Hazards: Human Settlements
Moon: Dione
Resources: Water Ice, Iron, Water (Deep)
Known Hazards: Human Settlements
Moon: Rhea
Resources: Carbon, Water Ice
Known Hazards: Rings, Human Settlements
Moon: Iapetus
Resources: Water Ice, Rock
Known Hazards: Human Settlements,
Nanoplague
The newly-renamed
Einstein's Cross, formerly known as the
Harmony, is a ship that is actually two vessels connected by a vacuum seal around the engine bloc of the first.
The first half is known as
Wasp. It resembles a green blended-wing-body aircraft that is capable of SSTO in low-gravity environments. Running primarily on a miniature nuclear-thermal rocket that can be adapted to suit most improvised fuel setups, it is a prospecting craft that can be operated remotely or crewed. It features belly-mounted cargo doors that allow cargo to easily be loaded into the craft from a surface shipyard.
The second half is known as
Tanker. It is a more conventional rocket without landing gear, designed to store large amounts of propellant for its nuclear thermal drive. It, too, can run on alternative fuels if necessary, but only with secondary thrusters. Its primary drive is a nuclear salt water thruster, which allows for efficient, high-delta-V transit between orbits.
Tanker has two habitat sections. The first is a grav-deck that contains crew quarters and recreation facilities. The grav deck's compartments can tilt to face the direction of thrust during maneuvers. The second habitat section is at the middle of the entire vessel, or at the front of
Tanker, which contains utilities designed for free-fall and also contains the bulk of the ship's cargo storage and manufacturing facilities.
Einstein's Cross also has a small wing of untitled mini-tankers which can deploy automated mining stations on moon surfaces. The mini-tankers can then recover the collected materials/fuel and bring it back to
Tanker for use.
The flight controls are currently locked as the ship's computer plots through courses and their fuel requirements.
PLAYER SHEETS
Samarkand AKA Felicia Hasting---General Skills---
Observer (1)---Sciences---
Medic (1)Botanist (2)Chemist (1)---Thievery and Deception---
Saboteur (1)Scavenger (1)Sleight of Hand (1)Cloud Health: 0%
Composition: 100% Regular Nanites
Nanofabrication [1/3]
---Crafting---
Inventor (2)---Sciences---
[spoiler=Skills]
Engineering (1)---Nanites---
[spoiler=Skills]
Cloud Combat (1)Cloud Health: 0%
Composition: 100% Regular Nanites
Constructor [1/3]
---General Skills---
Acrobat (1)---Vehicles---
[spoiler=Skills]
Piloting (2)Engineering Technician (1)---Deception---
Sleight of Hand (1)Cloud Health: 0%
Composition: 100% Regular Nanites
---Deception---
Ambusher (1)Liar (1)---Combat---
[spoiler=Skills]
Sidearms (2)Swordsman (1)Cloud Health: 0%
Composition: 100% Regular Nanites
Author
Topic: The Cloud - One Small Step... (Read 42267 times)