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[S34N1C]

PTW for now

[Chiefwaffles]

You look for a suit life support connection in the cockpit and sadly can't find any. So you just do the simple thing and completely shut off life support. You proceed to rummage around in various built-in containers placed around the cockpit looking for some kind of documentation on the shuttle. Unable to find anything, you turn to what appears to be the primary computer interface for the shuttle. You try messing with various controls until finding a kind of "Help" menu.

All it does is tell you where the instruction material is held. You pull out the drawer to find a series of 3 large books. Wiping off the dust from each reveals:
ADC-16 ENGINE OPERATION
ADC-16 INTERFACE OPERATION
ADC-16 PILOTING OPERATION
Seems kind of straight forward. You leave the drawer open with the books still inside for future reference. Minus the one titled "ENGINE OPERATION", which you take out.
"Suit Oxygen at 53.3%. Estimated time until depletion: 16 minutes."

After about a minute of reading the engine manual, you decide to instead reference the interface book - since in hindsight, that would probably be the one explaining how to use the interface to turn on the engine. You start to read the interface manual, and eventually think you have a basic idea of how to use it. Very basic, since this is a huge book. You orient yourself back towards the various instruments and screens to start the engi-
"WARNING: Suit Oxygen at 33.3%. Estimated time until depletion: 10 minutes."

You quickly head over back to your ship to recharge.
"Capacitor at: 13.3% of maximum capacity."
Satisfied with your once-again full suit, you head back to the shuttle, where you manage to turn on the engine after a minute of finagling with the controls some more.

You sit back, buckled into the pilot's seat, listening to the loud hum of the craft's engines. You eye the capacitor charge quickly hitting 100%, and unbuckle yourself to do some more work.
"Suit Oxygen at 93.3%. Estimated time until depletion: 28 minutes."

Back outside the shuttle, you reconnect the cable. It gets hot rather fast, but you hope it'll be safe for the time being. Holding the Interface manual, you launch yourself off the shuttle's hull back towards your fighter, where you buckle yourself in, watching the capacitor levels rise and further reading up on the shuttle's interface. You also hook yourself into the life support system to make your life easier. Eventually the capacitor charge indicator hits 100% and you head back to the shuttle.

After disconnecting the cable, you crawl back into the cockpit for one more thing. Specifically to look for a map of the hulk itself. The first thing you notice once back inside is the fuel level monitor indicating the fuel tank is at 92%. You continue on with your goal of finding the map. Unfortunately, after 6 minutes of doing this, you give up, empty handed. You'll have to go in blind. You grab a marker pen lying in the cockpit and stow it on your person and float to the fighter for one more oxygen refill.

"Suit Oxygen at 100%. Estimated time until depletion: 30 minutes."
"Capacitor at: 95% of maximum capacity."

You eventually reach the airlock. After a long time spent using your carried tools to pry open the first door and one oxygen refill, you manage to get the first door open.
Inside the airlock you see something that almost makes you cry.

An EVA suit locker. You open it to see a rather bulky suit - much more bulky than your flight suit, which was designed to allow for maximum agility in pilots. Some labeling on it seems to suggest it has an oxygen tank rated to last for 45 minutes. But the interesting thing is that behind the suit is an extremely long cable that seems to be designed to connect a life support system and the suit over long distances.
You look at the end of the cable, and it seems like it would fit in a port you saw earlier in the shuttle.

"Suit Oxygen at 80%. Estimated time until depletion: 24 minutes."
What now?

[Maegil]

That'll do, if it's in good conditions.

Take the suit back to the ship, examine it, don it and test it for bells and whistles. Set the alarms to 15 and 5 minutes. Plug it to the shuttle and if necessary activate the life support.

The next priorities are to access the ship's log and astro-navigation data, and to retrieve the bridge backup power generator. Even if we do find a way to repair our hyperdrive or find a jump-capable ship, they're useless if we don't know where we are.

Enter the hulk and start searching for the bridge. Mark the walls to show which way you came from; pay attention for directions signs and maps at junctions. Be prepared to find corpses.

[_DivideByZero_]

Sparks in space? Maybe we should check for a gas leak. Somehow.

On the other hand it could just be little bits and pieces of the contacts vaporizing. We should look for a power switch of sorts so we can avoid hot plugins (i.e. connecting live cables) in the future. Turn power off, plug/unplug, turn it back on.


EDIT:

Since the connection is getting hot, we should probably try to keep the cables connected from now on to equalize the voltage in the capacitors. That way we don't have a surge of current every time we plug in the system.

If it's still a problem we might have to use the life support in the shuttle to minimize the current through the power cable.

I have no idea what you're talking about. No sparks here.
No sir.

Spoiler: ((Caught on tape :P)) (click to show/hide)

[Chiefwaffles]

I have no idea what you're talking about. No sparks here.
No sir.

[Maegil]

Mythbusters: Sparks in Space

a) Sparks as in fizzling molten droplets of metal: totally possible

b) Sparks as in voltaic arc: not possible, there's insufficient density of atoms in the medium to conduct the electricity so atoms can't become glowing plasma as the passing energy strips them of electrons. However, the electrons might jump directly from one pole to the other if the potential difference is high enough and the distance sufficiently small; this in itself is invisible but may cause a).

[Chiefwaffles]

You grab the suit with one hand and crawl back to your ship using the other. Once you arrive, you hoist the suit in the ship along with yourself, and close the canopy. You turn cabin life support back on and spend a fair bit of time putting on the suit. Once it's on and you're pretty sure it has oxygen left in it and has no leaks, you turn cabin life support back off.
"Capacitor at: 90% of maximum capacity."

The suit is, as you suspected, extremely bulky. You try to discern how it works and if you can do anything more than survive with it. You find a small button on the side of your helmet. Pressing it activates a basic HUD outlining Oxygen levels as well as Capacitor and Fuel indicators.

Huh. It has its own capacitor and its own fuel tank. You look at your hands and see what look like small outlets that you can only assume are designed for tools to be plugged into. You're not sure how the fuel's relevant. The suit almost definitely has thrusters, but nothing you do seems to activate them. After a couple minutes of messing with the suit, you actually think you may have a handle on them.
You really should have seen it sooner, but it looks like you have a very basic set of thrusters located on your back meant for precise maneuvering - probably to aid in external repairs or something along those lines. Using some precise hand... gestures? seems to activate them. Further more, specific movements with your feet also activate magboots.
So that's helpful.
OXYGEN REMAINING: 38 MINUTES. CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU.

You walk (very exciting to you) to the shuttle and close the door. You read the interface manual some more but unfortunately it seems that you can't toggle cabin life support - it's only on or off. You sigh in your suit and plug the cord into the port you saw earlier and turn on life support.
OXYGEN CONNECTED. LOCAL CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. HOST CAPACITOR LEVEL: 50/50 EU. LOCAL FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU. HOST FUEL LEVEL: 48/50 FU.

Prepared for your trek, you start to walk back into the airlock. After about 10 minutes you manage to get the second door open. The other side seems to lack pressure as well. You mark the wall and begin walking towards where you mentally noted the bridge should be earlier.
OXYGEN CONNECTED. LOCAL CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. HOST CAPACITOR LEVEL: 48/50 EU. LOCAL FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU. HOST FUEL LEVEL: 48/50 FU.

...

OXYGEN CONNECTED. LOCAL CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. HOST CAPACITOR LEVEL: 39/50 EU. LOCAL FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU. HOST FUEL LEVEL: 48/50 FU.
You've been walking for about 45 minutes at this point. You spent a bit opening a door earlier but other than that, not much has happened. The trip up this point has been fairly bland. You've been walking through a fairly spacious corridor that looks like it has some kind of track going along the center, but haven't even seen any branching parts of the ship.

You haven't been walking particularly fast thanks to the nature of both the magboots and the bulk of your suit, but you think you've reached the bridge. Or at least, the part before it. You just opened a door leading to a large "junction" room. The tracks end at what appear to be a station here. You don't see whatever goes on the tracks, but you do see  openings in the ceiling of the room as well as various ramps and consoles and terminals. They're all unpowered, of course, but it definitely seems like this was a stopping point for whatever thing that drives on the track.
Thinking back, you saw one of these outside the airlock, too. Just much smaller scale. It looks like you came from the side of the ship.  Two tracks appear to come in from a more central corridor.

You find the door handily labeled "BRIDGE" and quickly pry-
Huh.
The door's functional.

The door slides open for you as you step across, and closes behind you tries to close but stops upon hitting the cable. You see a large glass(?) "window" covering the entire front wall of the bridge. The actual bridge seems to be on a platform suspended in the middle of the 'chamber'. It ends before reaching the aforementioned window with various consoles and seating.

The consoles light up and a voice comes in through the intercom.
"System waking begun."

More consoles and lights begin to start illuminating the large chamber. On the window, a gigantic augmented display appears to be booting up.
"Retrieving stored data from last waking."

The window, or, well, display, starts to go through a rather extensive log. You can make out some of the lines before they quickly disappear. But they don't mean much by themselves. Eventually, the log ends. The system appears to stall, then more text appears on the screen.
HORIZONS COLONY SHIP - SYSTEM ANALYSIS
Waking Cycle: #07
Last waking: 2258.02.21
Current waking: 2313.08.19

Cryochamber status: Offline.
Occupants Status: Deceased.

"Unknown scenario encountered. Initiating wakeup sequence for command crew and waiting for human input."

Well, it looks like the bridge still had power at least.
There are too many consoles to be able to quickly determine the function of each one. You're probably going to need an idea of what you want to find if you want to use one. What now?
OXYGEN CONNECTED. LOCAL CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. HOST CAPACITOR LEVEL: 38/50 EU. LOCAL FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU. HOST FUEL LEVEL: 48/50 FU.

[Dustan Hache]

try to pull up some logs on the ship. It looks fairly old, and according to the logs of the last shakeup this thing is bloody ancient. The more we know about it, the better.

[VoidSlayer]

Check for a power control screen.  We need to know how much energy is being used and where.

[S34N1C]

See if you can pull up that log again. If we can actually read it, we might learn something important. Or it could have just been the ships subroutines. Let's find out

[Maegil]

((Magboots are pretty much zeerusty by the latest technology. The future is now pointing to gecko boots, which can stick to even non-magnetic materials and work even in vacuum.

BTW, we had an umbilical connected to the ship and the bridge door closed behind us... or did it really?))

Hmm, a colony ship...

Copy the navigation data and the ship's log to the shuttle's computer, or, failing that, to the suit.

The ship seems to have been attacked 55 years ago, the log should clarify the circumstances... how long has this war with the Occupiers lasted? Since we're recalling our high school history classes, what was the official reason for the war, and what did we hear that could contradict that version?
What about the Occupiers' biology, could they live in one of the local planets?

There might still be a hyperspace-capable ship in a hangar, check in the computer if we're in luck.

[Chiefwaffles]

Right, the whole "Survival War'.
You believe it started around 30 years ago, though fairly recently it's been escalating from border skirmishes to more of a total war. The government's official cause to declare war was in response to an attack on a frontier colony which also happened to be first contact. Some people claim there was contact beforehand, and some say that there was fighting beforehand. Some people even talk about a secret war that became too unwieldy to keep from the public eye.
Some people are nutjobs, though.

As for Occupiers, you're not really sure what their biology is. You've only ever seen them encased in armor. Though you've heard that supposedly they live in very similar conditions as humans. Besides, planets classified as barren are seen as unfit for any sort of life resembling the known complex life, including Occupiers.

You try looking for some kind of power control screen. Glancing to your right, you spot a large station with a seat surrounded by screens. Plenty of moving bars are present on the displays as well as text you can just make out to be labels for various power consumption. You quickly stomp your way over and sit down.

POWER CONTROL INTERFACE: PRIMARY SYSTEMS
REACTOR: OFFLINE
AUXILIARY REACTOR ALPHA: OFFLINE
AUXILIARY REACTOR BETA: OFFLINE

SOLAR PANELS: OFFLINE [CONNECTION ERROR]
BRIDGE EMERGENCY GENERATOR: ONLINE [+5 EU/s]

HYPERSKIM DRIVE: OFFLINE

THRUSTERS: OFFLINE
LIFE SUPPORT: OFFLINE
CRYOCHAMBER: OFFLINE
AUTOMATED CONTROL: ONLINE [BRIDGE EMERGENCY GENERATOR: -3 EU/s]
BRIDGE CONTROL: ONLINE [BRIDGE EMERGENCY GENERATOR: -2 EU/s]
TRACKS: OFFLINE
SENSORS: OFFLINE
COMMUNICATION: OFFLINE
MISCELLANEOUS: OFFLINE

Huh. It looks like it'll last for now, at least. You run over to a console that looks like the "central" one - the one you think that could be linked to the main display and therefore have the logs. It seems you're right and you manage to find a very long log stored here.

It's too long to read out every individual line, but it is possible to summarize. The first important note is that this ship was launched in 2076. The second is that while the logs suggest intersystem travel, you don't see anything pointing to hyperjumping. In fact, it mentions the "Hyperskim Drive" you saw earlier in the power control interface.
The third thing you find out is that it seems the ship is actually relatively undamaged. The damage control logs seem to point to the damage being completely localized in the cryochamber. Looks like the rest of the systems were heavily disrupted but not actually damaged. Essentially forcibly shut down with no mechanism in place to 'revive' the ship.

You could probably find out more from these logs, but you'd have to have something in mind first. And it doesn't seem the logs actually mention anything about the context of the ship. That could be stored somewhere, but probably rather hidden seeing how unimportant it may be seen as.


You spend about 5 minutes looking for something that looks intended for navigations. Finally, you find a central terminal depicting a simple route between 6 systems overall including this one, with each system being labeled something along the lines of "Waking Cycle #", where the number increases with each planet, starting with "01" at the first planet and ending with "06" and "07" at the system it's currently at.
You try to find some way to download the data, but any further operation of this system is completely alien to you. And you also can't even seem to find any kind of system documentation relating to how to work the navigation console.


Huh. You've forgotten to check your various capacitor and fuel levels since you started looking at these terminals.
OXYGEN CONNECTED. LOCAL CAPACITOR LEVEL: 5/5 EU. HOST CAPACITOR LEVEL: 26/50 EU. LOCAL FUEL LEVEL: 5/5 FU. HOST FUEL LEVEL: 48/50 FU.
Not great.

But if this ship doesn't have a hyperdrive, that means you're stranded here. Maybe you could try to rig together some sort of hyperwave distress signal using the parts from your hyperdrive and the hulk's comm systems? There could very well be something else out there in space or on the planet you're missing, though.
Or hell, for all you know, there might just be some method to escape this system using this hulk or things from it.

[S34N1C]

The systems are still functional right? If so, see if we can turn on some of the other systems. If we could start up the generators, it's possible that we could just fly this thing back home.

[Maegil]

Without the cryo systems, a 150 years trip is kind of infeasible...

You try to find some way to download the data, but any further operation of this system is completely alien to you. And you also can't even seem to find any kind of system documentation relating to how to work the navigation console.

Kick the console in frustration.

Look for ship schematics.
See if it's possible to activate the generator from the bridge; run a diagnostics scan to find the point of failure to the solar panels. Look for hull breaches and which blast doors must be closed to isolate them once we get the power back on in the main grid.

Return to the shuttle bay, and look for a way to refuel it. See if there are tools to be found; you'll need them soon enough. Run the engines again to recharge the capacitors.

If the hulk's main reactor must be started locally, head there and look for a way to do it; otherwise head to where the panels' connection is interrupted and repair it.

[VoidSlayer]

We should check the cryo bay.  Even if it is damaged that does not mean every pod is ruined.  At worst there might still be life support things like liquid oxygen we can scavenge.