Topic: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure (Read 20301 times)

Parsely · « **Reply #210 on:** June 29, 2015, 03:57:11 am »

* * LOG * * LOG * * LOG * *

//GOOD MORNING CAPTAIN RAKER
//HAPPY NEW YEAR

_{/ISSUED JAN 1 7XXX
/1298-8684-1450
/TMV WIL
/APPROP MAINFRAM}

**TRANSMISSION RECEIVED**

BEGIN TRANSMISSION
New London OTC #5648: TMV Wilhelmina is granted permission to commence separation procedure. Docking tax has already been deducted. Please separate within 12 hours. Have a happy New Year. Fly safe.
END TRANSMISSION

**STANDARD REPLY SENT**

**BEGIN CREW REPORTS**

"Blackjack"/Draignean
You're seated in the Computer Information Center Mainframe, the chair's straps pulled around your shoulders to allow you to type without drifting away in the microgravity. The room is the smallest and coldest on the ship, because of the walls packed with banks of expensive plastic hardware and the air conditioning necessary to keep the room temperature at an ideal 16.5° Celsius.

There are three monitors for querying. Two of them are dark but you're using one to write your notes for the day. The walls are thin to save on mass, so you don't like dictating your personal notes. Once you're finished you save the file manually, then—

"Computer, prepare a standard report."

It processes the task in less than a second and reports it complete with a flat beep.

"Give me a hard copy."

The printer below the monitor rattles and spits out a ream of extremely thin paper. You tear it out and give it a good read. You note with a grin the launch permission that New London control sent over.

Then, satisfied, you fold it up and tuck it into one of your p-suit's pockets. You worm out of the straps, leaving the monitor to autosleep itself, and kick away towards the hatch leading into the connecting hallway. All the preparations have been made ahead of time, with the finishing touches made early today, and now that you've got permission to disconnect everyone just needs to hit the acceleration couches before you can take off. You've got the whole trip planned in advance. First, you're going to head to—

Elizabeth/SerCon
You feel absolutely terrible. Your stomach refuses to settle, you've vomited a few times since you've been up here. You've traveled before, so you don't understand why you feel this way. The doctor—you haven't been formally introduced but you think her name is Helen—says it's because you've never had extended exposure to null or microgravity. The fluid in your stomach, your skull, your veins, your eyes, is all weightless. The past few days you haven't been doing anything useful. Over time, she claims, you'll just get better.

In the meantime you've just been languishing in your billet. Since there's no gravity you can't use your bed normally. You have a sort of sleeping bag with holes in it for your arms that's attached to the frame using strips of adhesive that have thick, strong velcro on the opposite side. Every muscle in your body is relaxed aside from your stomach, which is bunched up in a rough, aching knot. Your stomach doesn't feel too awful today, and you're not tired, so you feel like you could stand to get up and do some things.

Peter/Dutrius
The power plant isn't in half terrible shape. The radiation shielding is all intact, someone did a good job of maintaining the water shield over the years. There's some inevitable contamination in parts of engineering and you borrowed the GP-01 and had it scrub the bulkheads with chemicals you prepared. The fissile material is quite fresh so you don't have to worry about ever swapping rods. During your lifetime at least. The chemical rocket engine is in similar shape. If you had any worries about this ship, you would've spoken up or taken care of it by now. You're impressed at the captain's eye for a good ship.

You're aboard the ship somewhere. Raker said you're due to be off sometime during today.

"Chainsaw"/Cheesecake
You had a lot to do during prep. Your job as cook didn't contribute much. The food the captain has invested in, the v-rations, don't require any preparation. A v-ration is a small rectangular box that has exactly enough meals for a single day. They're rated based on measurements like height, sex, and metabolism. It's got three to five self-contained portions that you consume throughout a given Earth day at scheduled times. Even the material the container is made of is edible. They're tasty, efficient, and you despise them. Those inelegant, olive-green cuboids affront your passion for traditional cooking. Not that there's ever been a place for that aboard a space ship.

You have a lot of experience in general supply keeping, so instead you've spent most of your time, as you did aboard the pirate vessel, behaving as a quartermaster. You loaded everything aboard the ship with the loader bot's help and the others took turns helping you out. The astrogator's almost as handy with a suit as you are. You spent a lot of your time doing the inventory on your own, which was quite the job. Supplies, equipment, and goods; you ticked it all off and input it into the computer for it to keep track of.

You haven't heard anything from Blackjack as yet about when you're due to leave. You're just relaxing right now, somewhere aboard the ship.

Helen Atreides/Tiruin
You were the second to come up, after the captain. You checked each person as they arrived and made sure they were acclimating properly to microgravity. Only Miss Marello failed to adapt right away, having the least experience in low gravity. She was fine during the immediate transition, when she arrived on a surface-to-orbit shuttle, but after she had crossed through Tower station to the Wilhelmina she had a fit of nausea and vomited repeatedly. She still hasn't overcome her nausea but it's become less acute and you've been monitoring her condition. You don't think it will interfere with the launch. Otherwise, everyone seems to be alright.

The ship itself isn't without problems though. You also did some cultures of the bulkheads in various parts of the ship, standard procedure aboard any ship, since you can't have rogue bacteria creating growths and promoting sickness. There was a disturbing amount of fungal spores in the engine section's main store room before it had been loaded up. You told the captain and he said he delegated someone to disinfect it.

You're somewhere on the ship waiting to hear from the captain.

Amaani/wipeout
During the course of the last few days of preparations, you check the computer's plot in advance of the departure. It was perfect, of course. You didn't have much else to do, so you spent a lot of time in the Tower of London exploring the huge promenade shopping center. You had the opportunity to buy some things, and as how you didn't bring much of your own things aboard, there was plenty of weight allowance available for bringing purchases aboard. Before that you assisted the cook in loading the holds, since you have the second most EVA experience, right next to the cook, due to your experience during astrogation training.

Right now you're somewhere on the ship, waiting for word to come down from Orbital Traffic Control to the captain, and then to you. Then the computer will perform final diagnostics and you'll take off.

**BEGIN SYSTEM CHECK**

WHOIS::
SHIPNAME: Wilhelmina
SHIPCLASS: Tug/Merchant Vessel
POWERPLANT: Water-Atomic, Plutonium-239
REMASS: Liquid Hydrogen

STATUS::
COMPUTER: Nominal
ENGINE: Nominal
POWERPLANT: Nominal
FLUID: Nominal
RADIATOR: Nominal
HULL: Nominal
HARDCONNECTIONS: Nominal

NAVIGATE::
SYS: Tarf
NEARBODY: New London
NEARSTAT: SSS Tower of London

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Stars and Their Stations (click to show/hide)

COMM::
SIGNAL: Yes
CONNECTIVITY: Enabled
CONTACTS: 1333

**BEGIN INVENTORY**

Supply/Equipment Manifest

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cargo Manifest

Spoiler: Diagram (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 1 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 2 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 3 (click to show/hide)

Living Assignments, Possession Disclosure

Spoiler: 7 Crew Billets, 1 Captain's Lodge (click to show/hide)

Crew Manifest

Spoiler: Blackjack/Draignean (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Elizabeth/SerCon (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Peter/Dutrius (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cheesecake/Chainsaw (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Helen Atreides/Tiruin (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Amaani/wipeout (click to show/hide)

CAPTAIN'S NOTES:
Debt: 500,011,121 UC

* * LOG * * LOG * * LOG * *

SeriousConcentrate · « **Reply #211 on:** June 29, 2015, 08:41:01 am »

Elizabeth cycled her AR over to her schedule. Somewhat childishly (or so she thought with a tinge of internal embarrassment), she had cleared off the last few days as 'be sick' and it looked like she had scheduled that as 'indefinite/until launch'. She decided she would wait until launch to reorganize her schedule; she wasn't used enough to zero-g to feel confident in her ability to get anything of substance done. Instead she folded her hands over her aching stomach and watched her beebot buzz about the room, tending the flowers.

Draignean · « **Reply #212 on:** June 29, 2015, 08:46:33 pm »

Blackjack pushed his way through the ship, a good natured hum following him as he spun through the Wilhelmina's empty halls. Soft toed jump boots and high friction maneuvering gloves left not a scuff on the vessel as he passed by. New year's day... A odd word outside of Sol, but still a concept that held meaning. New beginnings.

"This is your captain speaking," Blackjack said, clipping his comm to his ear and patching into the ship's PA system. "Port authority has given us launch permission. Amaani, you're clear to perform final pre-flight diagnostics. Everyone else, make a hole in your schedule for couch time. We've got a lot of sky to burn through on our way to Opal, and it's high time we got underway." Blackjack smiled to himself as he drug his fingers across a wall to brake and reorient to ground. "In addition, there should be a surprise ready for the dinner after launch. It's New Year's, and the celebration is on me. Over and out."

Raker finished reorienting himself outside Dr. Atreides office, keeping himself stable with one hand and one toe while he buzzed the door. He took it as a point of pride that enough of his null movement training remained to let him appear to 'stand' in the hallway without gravity, sucker boots, magnets, or velcro.

Check in with first officer

Spoiler: Theoretical crew pay chart, before it comes up officially. (click to show/hide)

wipeout1024 · « **Reply #213 on:** June 30, 2015, 02:05:27 am »

Amaani was trying to calm herself before the launch of the ship, and was currently in the helm, taking deep breaths. When she heard the captain's orders, she looked over the system, and started checking to make sure everything was in place, before the launch. She was determined to prove herself, as she was a last-minute addition to this.

Parsely · « **Reply #214 on:** June 30, 2015, 03:02:43 am »

Quote from: wipeout1024 on June 30, 2015, 02:05:27 am

Amaani was trying to calm herself before the launch of the ship, and was currently in the helm, taking deep breaths. When she heard the captain's orders, she looked over the system, and started checking to make sure everything was in place, before the launch. She was determined to prove herself, as she was a last-minute addition to this.

Small update to explain the "helm": You would be inside the control room, which is in the CIC half of deck 2 (deck 3 is closest to the engine and so on up), above the mainframe chamber that Raker was just in.

First is the pilot's station: you have rotational control, attitude control, and thrust control, and displays that tell you which direction the ship's axis of thrust is aimed, as well as informing you of the burn time, and how much delta V has been generated by the current burn. There are various readings on temperature and fluid control for the main thruster, as well as levels of propellant available in the tanks. There's also a panel dedicated to displays related to the reactor. There is a control that allows communication directly with engineering. You would only take over this station in the case of an emergency, normally the computer handles all the piloting.

Beside that is astrogation, for plotting courses, which is just a desk with a computer on it that has the AstroGate^TM (precise body positioning, chronometer, accelograph, ship's current mass ratio, audio recorder, digital slide rules, and ballistic calculators) app on it.

Beside THAT is the sensor/comms station. There are radar and sensor scopes, as well as a radio setup for communicating between ships.

On an older ship there would be entire decks for communication, sensors, astrogation, and control, but this is a relatively new vessel, and the supercomputer automates most tasks.

Dutrius · « **Reply #215 on:** June 30, 2015, 07:23:01 am »

Peter was in his cabin, strumming on is acoustic guitar. He had stuck the music sheet he was using to the music stand with adhesive putty after the sheet floated away mid tune earlier. Every three hours or so, he had looked over the reactor readouts, trying to spot anything unusual, anything that might become a problem if left unchecked. So far, everything was well within normal bounds.

Peter would have to watch it more closely when the Wilhelmina launches, at least for the first week, because so far the reactor has been running at its minimal power setting and Peter has not seen it run at any higher setting yet. When your main coolant is also your reaction mass, you can't really keep a reactor running at more than that while not using the engines, the external heat exchangers can only radiate so much heat.

When the announcement came that the vessel was about to launch, Peter was simultaneously relieved and nervous. He was relieved that the period of waiting was almost over, and nervous because he was about to embark on a long journey with a crew of people he did not really know. He had met the others when they came on board and worked with them when preparing the Wilhemina, and first impressions were good, but Peter was always slightly nervous around people he didn't know.

Of course, everything should be fine. The reactor is in good condition and practically runs itself.

wipeout1024 · « **Reply #216 on:** June 30, 2015, 07:39:21 am »

Inspect each system one by one, before takeoff.

Parsely · « **Reply #217 on:** June 30, 2015, 08:33:35 pm »

((Just waiting on Cheesecake now.))

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

E: ((And Tiruin.))

Cheesecake · « **Reply #218 on:** July 01, 2015, 04:25:12 am »

Chainsaw was busy reading his 'special' magazines. All the inventory bullcrap was enough to make even nymphos sexually frustrated. He had a while before launch started, and his responsibilities were all done. The rest of the crew were still busy making sure the Wilhelmina didn't blow itself up.

The only person he knew on the crew was Blackjack, and he was probably somewhere doing important captain things with his first officer. That nurse lady, if he remembered the roster. It was nice to have medical professionals on board, but if she stuck one needle in him all hell would break loose.

Chainsaw continued flipping pages of his magazine. Takeoff would be here soon.

((OOC: Hot damn I'm poor.))

Tiruin · « **Reply #219 on:** July 02, 2015, 12:18:50 pm »

((So GUNIN notified me that we're dealing with personal stuffs in this turn--next turn would be interaction :O

Also have been busy lately. Using the net to download music = fun. Not that fun if net = "a bit" slower than most...other countries. Much fun if movie making \o/))

Quote

The room is the [...]coldest on the ship, [...] 16.5° Celsius.

((Totally relating here, as it mimics my temperature.

Our temp here ranges from ~21C on sunny days, to ~15C on nights. 13C or below is very cold...)

Helen sat comfily on her bed, stretching her arms, content with the layout of her room after ensuring everything was set-up and in their proper places. Her thoughts wandered in many degrees of analogy, comparing the styles of the wallpaper to the stability of a ship during takeoff, or the naturalesque lighting in her room mirroring the feeling of lying on a grassy hill on a sunny day. She wondered if the ship had any exercise machines or sparring rooms--she had a book on anatomy with several chapters containing scribbled martial arts notes--to keep the body in shape during these travels: Gravity was a main precursor to health, without it many functions would be hard-up in the long run. This in turn made her wonder about her choices before becoming a professional: Ophthalmology sounded like a great specialization.

All this pondering carried on as she tested out the study desk, reviewing the crew roster as well as allocation of personal funding: She knew how to take care of herself as well as her needs, and was curious about any improvements she could contribute towards. Setting the cradle ticking, she began drawing the famed bridges of Konigsberg as an allusion to how the crew was intertwined...

After the Captain's announcement, disappointment nudged her in the side: She had forgotten to collect culture samples of the fungi for personal study. She wondered if some species were bioluminescent...

Meet Captain; inquire on fund allocation, inquire if personal pay may be at same rates as crew and the rest towards well-being of ship or improvements of budget. {Will ask about direct donation later on}

E: ((I have no idea if I have enough money to afford medical tech or apparatuses. On board extended medlab please? :3))

Parsely · « **Reply #220 on:** July 02, 2015, 05:49:20 pm »

((It was worth the wait. You post well, Tiruin. <3))

((I'll brief you on your medical facilities later. I just interviewed someone and got a pretty good idea of what you'd have.))

Parsely · « **Reply #221 on:** July 05, 2015, 04:27:11 am »

Here's what I told Tiruin about her facilities:
She's got a room divided into six bays. Each bay has a bed and everything she needs to provide triage and basic life support to any victim. She has surgical tools, EKG machines, a mobile x-ray machine, and a portable small-bore CT scanner. She'd assign, in advance, tasks you guys would take care of in the case of an emergency. She would teach you to do simple things like drawing blood, reading an EKG, transporting wounded persons, and recognizing surgical tools.

These details acquired from an actual nurse who has several years of experience in OR and a burn unit.

Next turn coming soon.

Parsely · « **Reply #222 on:** July 22, 2015, 09:01:15 pm »

Now that I'm working I've got to budget my time! From now on, updates are on weekends. Dis game ain't abandoned, 'kay?

Dutrius · « **Reply #223 on:** July 23, 2015, 06:37:07 am »

Alright.

Parsely · « **Reply #224 on:** July 26, 2015, 01:37:24 am »

* * LOG * * LOG * * LOG * *

"Blackjack"/Draignean
You already ordered the computer to memo the crew the new pay chart via the LAN to all the crew's PCs. You were happy that they all had their own compy so you didn't need to worry about using the white board in the mess. Chainsaw could use the space to write his specials.

You buzz the door open to Amaani's bunk. She notices you come in, and turns politely to meet you, almost forgetting to stick her scribe to the desk using the Velcro you provided. She's belted to the chair at her desk. You can see clearly the sheet of paper held under thin laminate beneath a strong overhead lamp that she was drawing on. Her composition looks complete. It's a bridge. You don't recognize it, but the only planet in the galaxy with bridges is Earth. You find it at once technically entertaining, but more powerful is a feeling of distaste at its fundaments; such a huge structure, so much material, all to cross a few hundred feet of water, and you can't push it somewhere else. It's because of Amaani's talent that you're so unimpressed, so focused on the object of the piece. Like looking at a photograph.

You note a few other things in her room, such as the stacks of medical books, her stereo, the flowery wallpaper. She brought the most out of anyone, coming under the weight limit by a hair. Not that you care one bit. You put her in the same quadrant as the rocks in 3.1 and 3.2. A loft bed; that made you cringe, thinking back to the days when a guy like you couldn't buy a ship that pulled a full G. It's kind of cute, the more you think about it. You look at Ms. Atreides. Looks like she's got a few things on her mind.

Elizabeth/SerCon
You pull your HUD, going past the top-level UI to your schedule app. You programmed it yourself, for practice, years back when you first became a roboticist. People enjoyed the convenience of rear brain implants, but you and a lot of reasonable people are justifiably afraid of having someone in a white coat being paid 12 dollars an hour plug in and load the updates into your head via "secure," "closed" networks. It's exactly like old folks and films make it to be. Businesses would never let it on, but people can, have, and will turn you off.

Everyone knows from the pamphlets they serve in the clinic lobbies that the board interacts with your rear lobe. What most people don't realize, but that they teach experts like you in school, is that your brain does all of the processing and memory access. You have lots of coder friends, some in security, so you know how all too easy it is to be bugged by some smart-ass black hat and get yourself bricked in a microsecond. An ideal way to carry out an assassination, politicians hired their own programmers, but there are a lot of sickos out there who go in for the kicks. The human mind isn't the kind of thing you can back up. People tried. It was worth the expense to do the uploads yourself. Some folks became programmers just for the peace of mind; the security of mind. And no one would ever call you eccentric for feeling that way.

You look at the dates. You didn't do much early this week. You sold the title on your car. No need for it up here. Lots of running to the bank to withdraw your money and close your accounts. The place you were at only had branches dirtside. You had to switch to those gougers at Star United who take care of all the spacers. "Manage your accounts from any star in the galaxy! No monthly maintenance fees!" You accidentally told the saleswoman who set up your account how soon you were leaving. It's making your stomach hurt more thinking about the transfer fees she slapped you with. You pop one of the pills the doc gave you for the nausea. You drop your HUD and curl up again to try and rest. Being in space is a pain in the ass.

Peter/Dutrius
You practice Wonderwall for the lesser part of an hour. You remember thinking that tuning the guitar would be different in space the first time you brought it up, during your probation to qualify as a null engineer. You stop thinking about school; you don't like remembering when you were in school. Not because anything bad happened. You just feel that it's wrong to live in the past. That's sort of why you became an engineer. The reactor doesn't really need constant supervision, but it helps you live in the present. It also makes you feel important, taking care of such a dangerous machine.

"Chainsaw"/Cheesecake
//APPROPO_MAINFRAME HAS NOTHING IMPORTANT TO NOTE ABOUT CREWMAN CHAINSAW'S ACTIVITIES IN HIS BUNK THIS MORNING AND WOULD INSTEAD LIKE TO REMIND THE CREW TO STAY HYDRATED AND AVOID UNNECESSARY ACTIVITY

Helen Atreides/Tiruin
The captain lets himself into your room. You immediately stop drawing and turn to face him when you notice he's there. Your nature doesn't lend you towards feeling the act as an intrusion, and he doesn't seem to think he was barging in either. Just two polite people who have no need for ceremonials like manners. You find it refreshing.

You watch him attentively as he glances around the room. He wears a neutral expression most of the time, so it makes it easy to read his feelings. He seems conflicted when he looks at your drawing, which stirs you a little. You're sensitive about your creations. You feel a pang of embarrassment low in your gut when he physically recoils, though he tries to repress it, at the sight of your loft bed. You didn't normally feel opulent even a couple years after graduation when you were living in your own house in New London, but people's reactions to your salary, which they always force you to quote, and your living arrangements steadily began to make you more mindful of it. Before this trip you decided to donate a lot of your money towards charity. Blackjack had recovered from his balk and seemed ready for you to ask him some questions, now that you had given him the chance to take things in.

Amaani/wipeout
You pull a systems check from the computer. Everything nominal, of course. You went along with Peter earlier and actually watched him go around to check all the machinery. You thought you knew everything about how a ship worked after astrogation school but there was so much more. He was surprised too at some of the things you knew, and you both took turns being baffled at how the other couldn't know about this or that. You run down the scopes and gauges in front of you, checking them one at a time, but you're not interested in the machines right now. You're mostly just thinking about Peter. You can't help wondering what his history is.

**BEGIN SYSTEM CHECK**

WHOIS::
SHIPNAME: Wilhelmina
SHIPCLASS: Tug/Merchant Vessel
POWERPLANT: Water-Atomic, Plutonium-239
REMASS: Liquid Hydrogen

STATUS::
COMPUTER: Nominal
ENGINE: Nominal
POWERPLANT: Nominal
FLUID: Nominal
RADIATOR: Nominal
HULL: Nominal
HARDCONNECTIONS: Nominal

NAVIGATE::
SYS: Tarf
NEARBODY: New London
NEARSTAT: SSS Tower of London

Spoiler: Map (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Stars and Their Stations (click to show/hide)

COMM::
SIGNAL: Yes
CONNECTIVITY: Enabled
CONTACTS: 1329

**BEGIN INVENTORY**

Supply/Equipment Manifest

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Cargo Manifest

Spoiler: Diagram (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 1 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 2 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holds 3 (click to show/hide)

Living Assignments, Possession Disclosure

Spoiler: 7 Crew Billets, 1 Captain's Lodge (click to show/hide)

Crew Manifest

Spoiler: Blackjack/Draignean (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Elizabeth/SerCon (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Peter/Dutrius (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Cheesecake/Chainsaw (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Helen Atreides/Tiruin (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Amaani/wipeout (click to show/hide)

CAPTAIN'S NOTES:
Debt: 500,011,121 UC

* * LOG * * LOG * * LOG * *

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Author Topic: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure (Read 20301 times)

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

SeriousConcentrate

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Draignean

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

wipeout1024

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Dutrius

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

wipeout1024

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Cheesecake

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Tiruin

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Dutrius

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure

Parsely

Re: Void•Black: A Hard Science Fiction Adventure