STAR BRICK
Check if I can somehow organize the repairs of the Sensor Room more expediently from here.
[2]
Captain Someone spends several futile minutes navigating the outdated and self-contradictory operating systems and perpetually-activated override protocols which comprise the main computer system of the
Star Brick, trying to find out more about what is going down in the Sensor Room and how it can be fixed. Unfortunately, it looks like Sensor Control is completely off the grid.
!!!!
I go searching for the new crewmember !GoSensorRm! while I stay and watch her and the rest of me go back out and keep searching for something better to protect someone from the electricity so they can get the repairs done.
Kit had had rather higher hopes for Skirri's performance, though perhaps the result isn't entirely unexpected. While a kitten runs off to fetch a new set of hands, the rest of the kittens return to the old Tensarian halls, searching in new directions for protective equipment.
[1]
They find a likely looking hole which seems to have been an old waste disposal chute. It's quite dark down at the bottom of the chute, but the kittens can make out tattered scraps of uniforms and tubing; perhaps there is some safety equipment down there in the trash.
Suddenly, the ship lurches violently! Itty bitty kitty claws scrabble at the deck, but three kittens are unable to keep their balance and tumble into the chute! The small fluffy pile mewls in alarm; they are trapped on a trash pile a solid three meters below the only visible egress, an impossible jump for the young kittens. Worse, the trash pile is far from the beaten paths of the rest of the
Star Brick; it will be exceedingly difficult for any other crewmembers to reach them down here.
Go to the sensor room and drag unconscious teammate to medbay. once they are safe, go back and use same piece of rubber to repair sensors
Conan is just finishing organizing his books -
again- when a small fluffball bursts from an overhead vent, tumbling onto his bed. Looking over in surprise, Conan sees that it is one of the kittens, bearing another message.
!GoSensorRm!What? Again? Is Conan going to have to do everything on this ship?
Oh dear.
Appearing on the Sensor Control room telepad, Conan does not need the kitten's help to see that the whole place is still in a state of dangerous disrepair. Thanks to his pocket flashlight, he also does not need the kitten's help to see Skirri sprawled on the floor beneath a light rubber sheet. She is definitely incapacitated.
Grabbing Skirri by the legs, Conan drags her onto the telepad, and they both appear in the Medbay. The Medbay is a surprisingly cheery place; the walls and ceiling are painted in a pleasing pastel gradient, the deckplates have been covered by clean white ceramic tiles, and a small potted cactus wearing a stethoscope sits on a table in the center of the room. The table is decidedly less cheery, with sharp, clean scalpels and microlasers and syringes lying on a rough heap. The left side of the room is occupied by a large, plush pink operating chair, surrounded by a worrying array of automated suturing arms, mounted surgical laser turrets, and gatling injection machines. The right side of the room holds a large tub- by the logo on the side, a repurposed Hedon Torrid Tub- which now holds a great quantity of green mystery sludge contained in a gravitic bubble.
[5]
Conan recognizes the sludge as HomeoGel, the galaxy's best-selling second-rate synthetic regenerative slime, and promptly tips Skirrin in. The tub makes some angry noises as HomeoGel splashes around the Medbay, but then dings happily as the gravitic bubble is restored. Skirri floats in the bubble, upside down but with positive life signs from the nearby monitors.
Learn nothing. Nothing!
[3]
Skirri is flying through space.
She does not appear to need oxygen, which is convenient since she has just been forcibly ejected from the Cphetei IV Marine Training Shuttle, which just goes to show that she was right about the spaceworthiness of the hatch seals; perhaps if her flight instructor had let her finish improving them, he wouldn't be flailing around the cockpit looking for an emergency respirator.
Curiously, her slow tumble takes her view from the Cphetei shuttle to a nearby Morgari courier vessel, which has been floating dead in space for three weeks. Skirri knows that it won't be fixed for another five days, when a repair hauler drops out of DSJ to deliver a Thermo-Spatial Inverter to repair the one Skirri repurposed for her homebrew nanotech assembler. Curious, because this incident took place long after Skirri left the Cphetei IV Marine Corps.
And look, over there! That's the podship whose DSJ reactor catastrophically failed for some reason (likely manufacturer incompetence) when Skirri tried to use it to charge her ionized capacitor for her Scrap Magnetizer! That invention was going to set her on easy street before it melted into slag and took her ship's main systems with it.
Skirri puzzles over why all of these disparate events seem to be happening simultaneously, especially since they already happened once, but the lesson is lost on her when she wakes up in the middle of a gel bubble.
Like most people who wake up in a HomeoGel Lifesac, Skirri immediately breathes in, smells the sharp tang of key lime pie, and begins to choke and suffocate on a mouthful of HomeoGel. The Hedon Torrid Tub pops the gravitic bubble, roughly ejecting Skirri and a few gallons of HomeoGel onto the Medbay floor. Skirri doesn't hear the medical computers happily reporting a complete restoration of nerve endings and assorted other biological repairs because she is too busy vomiting another gallon of HomeoGel onto the floor.
[5]
Conan watches this display with some measure of unease, but soon enough Skirri is back on her feet and ready to rumble. Back in the Sensor Control Room, Skirri grabs the rubber sheeting and prepares to rush the sparking panel once again, but Conan snatches it out of her hands and suggests an alternative. Soon, Skirri is crawling slowly towards the Emergency Circuit Kill Switch, hiding underneath the rubber sheeting like a turtle hides underneath its shell, except with more power equipment. Making her way safely beneath the arcing electricity, Skirri is able to throw the switch, throw off her rubber sheet, and commence repairs.
[4]
Fortunately, all the circuits that need to be repaired are readily accessible, and the components are quite cheap and easily replaced from a handy drawer full of the things. Snapping the panels closed with satisfaction, Skirri throws the Kill Switch and restores power to the room.
Consoles and monitors beep back into life, passive scanners immediately coming back online. On the main monitor, Skirri and Conan see a Aelyrain Patrol Frigate spring into view, the tactical overlay helpfully volunteering the fact that its shields are up and its weapons are hot.
Up on the bridge, Captain Someone mutters her thanks to whoever returned power to Sensor Control, and immediately initiates a passive scan, holding off on the active scans until she knows where the
Star Brick is. The passive scanners quickly return a dazzling amount of information, Someone's custom interface trashing and twitching madly.
[2]
Firstly, the
Star Brick has emerged from DSJ about half a parsec from its intended destination. This is not a good thing, since a DSJ is usually accurate to within .00000000000~ meters, and failure to emerge where you want to is a good way to end up dead. Someone isn't sure what went wrong, though it could be related to the fact that...
[1]
...Secondly, the
Star Brick is deep inside a gravity well of some kind. It could be a black hole unmarked on the star charts, or it could be an artificial DSJ interdiction field (as the best way to prevent a DSJ is to impose a broad gravitic gradient,) or any number of things, really. Captain Someone can't glean any more information from the passive scans, since that sensor data keeps being interrupted by warnings that...
[2]
...Thirdly, there is an Aelyrain Patrol Frigate bearing down on the
Star Brick with dual plasma lances fully primed and missile turrets locking on with automated targeting lasers. The
Star Brick shields take another hit as the ship plows into another pocket of debris; exact identification is impossible, but spectral analysis says that the
Star Brick is (and likely has been) tumbling through the exploded remains of another illegal salvage ship; or at least, illegal in the eyes of the Aelyrain Caliphate.
Credits: 100
Fuel: Full
Provisions: Full
Shields: 16%
Rooms of Interest:
Life Support
Engine Room: GRAVITIC ENGINES ONLINE DSJ CAPACITOR 10% CHARGE
DSJ Reactor: MAIN REACTOR ONLINE
Weapon Control
Shield Control
Medbay
Bridge (Captain Someone's Quarters)
Sensor Control: PASSIVE SENSORS ONLINE ACTIVE SCANNERS OPERATIONAL
Cargo Bay
Conan's Quarters: BOOKS ORGANIZED AGAIN
Skirri's Quarters
Author
Topic: Star Brick: Green Swirly Thing IN SPAAAAACE! (Read 16019 times)