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[19_EgarAlnis]

So, I'm assuming wait patiently and observe/try to foster good relations?

[Superdorf]

Sounds good, for now. We have eight years to pass on this trip, as currently projected - we can afford a bit of gentle patience.

[ZBridges]

No objection here.

[S1lentWanderer]

So, I'm assuming wait patiently and observe/try to foster good relations?

+1

patience, little king. 8 years is a long time.
 Be at peace with your new shipmates.
Trust is a flower that must be watered patiently, and consistently.
In time, it may even blossom into the flower of friendship.
Until then, be respectful and peaceful.
Care for Sloan, and be kind to all.
Maybe even offer to assist with ship repairs,
Once you've built a good relationship with the crew.

[King Zultan]

So, I'm assuming wait patiently and observe/try to foster good relations?

Sounds good to me.

[19_EgarAlnis]

The cameras provide much better entertainment than the vids that play on Sloan's data-slate. There are eleven members of the twenty crew still alive, and the tension between them plays out in every interaction. Several have developed nervous habits and unfortunate tics. One man, an engineer, double-checks the airlocks every time he moves by them on his maintenance patrol. Mac polishes his armor to a mirror shine, cleans his gun four times a day, either patrols or does isometric exercises alone. In the dark.

He avoids the others, and he doesn't sleep. Not really. Neither do the rest of the crew. They scream themselves awake or sob themselves into a fitful rest, dreading to go into the depths of true sleep. Basil observes Sloan, and she doesn't express the same symptoms. Her sleep is unburdened, despite higher exposure to the Plague.

Basil brings this up, one day, when she's doing pushups in the corner between the toilet and the bed.

"They're freshies." Is her response, "That...Plague shit is nasty, but I've been in the Rim a long time. Me and a crew once boarded a ship who's engines and breathers broke down. Now that gave me nightmares. Or that time I went to a drone-world."

"Drone-world?"

"So, humans reproduce in two ways, right? Naturally, which is gross, and by a machine called a Loom. Well, some rich folk realized that you don't really need to leave in the genes for...thought." Sloan drops to her haunches and shakes her head. "Some didn't even have mouths. And machines just---"

She shudders, "Mac might be able to keep his mind in the game, but these people don't have experience with that level of shit. It'll cost us. Hold my legs, will you?"

Basil nods, returning to his vigil over the cameras, leaning over to hold her legs down for her crunches.

The Acting Captain, a thin man named Veyer, spends most of his time in the vessel's bridge, staring out the glass window. His blond hair is a greasy mess, and his eyes are so bloodshot as to be pink. He mumbles to himself. Basil, without even accessing the slumbering medical AI's archives knows this to be a bad sign.


CRITICAL ENGINE FAILUR—

The alert wakes Basil from his meditations. Micro-seconds later, the shockwave shudders through the ship. The lights flicker and then shut off, to be replaced with low red glow strips on the floors and walls. The weight of gravity lifts and the vessel shudders again. Sloan begins a stream of invective as her hair begins to float up behind her head. Extending a hand, she steadies her floating form on a wall. Twitchy flails, helplessly, and Basil, after only a brief experience of zero gravity, adjusts his personal gravity to pin his feet to the floor with the same weight as before.

As her invective draws to a close, Sloan shoots a glare at Basil. "Cheater. What happened?"

"I don't know." Basil tries accessing the vessel status board, or the camera feeds, but there is no response from any of the systems. "The Artificial Intelligence isn't responding. It seems all wireless controlled systems are down."

Sloan begins another stream of invective. Pushing herself through the air to the wall beside the door, she pulls open a small hatch, a finger's width wide and scans the component within-- a plastic tube with a ball in it. The ball is green, and in the center of the tube. She ticks her head to Basil. "Pull it open. Outside isn't in vacuum."

Basil hesitates. Then, bracing himself against his own gravity, hauls the door open.

There's silence from the vessel outside.

"Hey!" Sloan shouts, she begins to pull/push herself out of the brig. She flows smoothly through the air, trading one hand-hold for the other as she glides through the vacuum.  "What the fuck happened?"

"Reactor offline!" A voice calls back, Mac’s calm drawl, "Check for air loss, Prisoners!"

Sloan looks around to spot a red plastic box on the ceiling. Tools of various types float away as she rummages her way through it. She takes a two-sided capsule from a grey bottle, slipping it into a tube and handing it to Basil. She pops out a few more, and pockets them in her jumpsuit, then hands the bottle over. She holds up the tube, presses another tube into it, and presses down. There's a light 'crack' from within, and smoke begins to bubble up from it. Then it drifts down the hallway. A small device, a can, is procured from the box, and she begins down one end of the hallway. "I'll go this way. Go the other. Use the foam cans to patch any place where the smoke leaks to.

Basil nods, and sets off. He checks the valve on each room-- before hauling the door open and testing for atmosphere leak. The can of foam instantly sets and seals the micro-ruptures he finds in the hull, Two doors do not open, the valve ball a bright red and pull against one end of the tube. One of them is the bridge. Soon his smoke candle, as the label reads, only produces a few puffs that lazy diffuse to the floor below. He turns back down the hallway.

Sloan stands by a hatch, arms crossed as she floats. Her feet are anchored to the ground by a pair of sturdy, humming boots, and she glances up when Basil approaches. "We're about back up."

"The Bridge is under vacuum."

"What?" Sloan does a double take. Her voice is echoed from below, by a man and woman.

"The Bridge is under vacuum." Basil repeats himself.

"Fuck." Sloan heaves a sigh. From below, there's a sob.


The air cyclers hum, and gravity has returned. The remaining crew sit around a table in the dining room, with Mac at the head of the table. There are six total crew remaining, not counting Basil and Sloan, who sit in the corner.

They sit in dejected silence, then, Mac speaks, “One of us is going to have to do a spacewalk and check out the damages. Try to figure out what caused it, and  see if there’s any way to salvage the bridge and engine.”

"What if whatever hit us is still out there?

Mac shrugs.

Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Basil the Scholar of V̵̖̉õ̶̼͠i̷͇̖͒d̷̨̈́ͅ
Terran Time: 43302/01/15 08:30
Personal Time: 1 year, 4 day

Active Dust: 4 × 10¹³ corpuscles
Nexus (Heart) Stability: Flawless
Nexus (Mind) Stability: 95%
ENERGY RESERVES:100%
Active Processes:

• 20% The First Mask
• 10% Quantum Networking
• ̶͕͖̣̗̗͈̏∞̴̠̣̺͔̬̼̍̍̉̂̀̅̄̌̓͠͝% ERROR:DATA CORRUPTION

Willpower Level: 3(d10)

Traits:
Empathetic (1/10)

Perks:
Scholar
Void

Spoiler: Objectives (click to show/hide)

Freedom

• The Galaxy beckons. New knowledge and interesting experiences await.

Knowledge

• The Behavior of the Third Children
• Seedships
• The Truth of the Ancient Twins, Earth and Mars

Strength

• Killing the Blighted Glass
• Mastering Your Skills
• Learn to Veil your Power.

Spoiler: Powers (click to show/hide)

Max Willpower Range: 10m

Ḙ̵̛̬̺̤͍̼̬̣̊̐̈̋́̏̔̊̑̃̊̚̚͜͠͠͠n̶̗͔̯͕̮͗̑ͅd̸̡̨̯̯̰̜͚͈̼͖͔͎͍̺͒͛̽̅͋̀̀̓͗̎̅̓͛͆͠͝l̴̟̺̳̍́͌͂̀͂̀́̎́̓͘͠e̸̦͈̋̔̃̂̒̃͝ş̸̗̯̘̣̻̪̠̗̤͑̎̓͛͗͝s̵̛̛͙̟͔͈͉̫̍̊̈̓͋̈̿̀̈́̍̚͠ ̷̳̣͉̯̗̣͓̼̠̠̆̃̑͌̚͝V̷̢̫̙͖̘̾́͗̿͒̾o̶͓̞̐͆̅̀̀̈́̿̿̚i̴̛̟͛̈͊͒̄̉͋̓̇̄͘͝͝͝d̵͕̜̬̜̠̝͇̈̂͂̂:Instinctive (NULL)
Brawling:Amateur(800/1000)
Ranged:Inept(50/100)
Meditation.:Instinctive (NULL)
Mimicry.:Instinctive (NULL)
-Arsenal of Agony.:Instinctive (NULL)
-The First Mask: Trained (2835/3000)
-The Second Mask: Dabbler (492/500)
-The Third Mask: Amateur (521/1000)
-The Fourth Mask: Novice (800/1000)
-The Fifth Mask: Dabbler (456/500)
-Healing Factor: Instinctive (NULL)
Control:Instinctive (NULL)
-Voice of the King: Dabbler (492/500)
Amalgamation:Dabbler (432/500)
Synthesis : Dabbler (452/500)
Rot:Dabbler(456/500)
Instant Quantum Networking : Instinctive (NULL)
Divine Conscious: Dabbler (393/500)
Unified Field Manipulation : Dabbler (393/500)
- Gravity: Dabbler (393/500)
- Matter Manipulation: Dabbler (393/500)
- Fission: Dabbler (393/500)
- Fusion: Dabbler (393/500)
- Energy Manipulation: Novice (847/1000)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

Lower Face:A cheap respirator. (20/20)
Lower Body:A brown jumpsuit
Upper Body:A black silk toga
On Feet: A pair of black leather boots
Right Wrist, Only Right Arm: A gold bracer tablet.

Spoiler: Bonds (click to show/hide)

The Devoured Sun

• A Plague Entity. Brought about the Galaxy's First Night.
• Hereditary grandparent of Basil
• Deceased(?)

The Blighted Glass

• A Plague Entity of immense power.
• Hereditary parent of Basil
• Contactable through Quantum Networking.

Sloan

• Homo Fundamentum Female
• Basil saved her life. (++Opinion)
• Contactable through Verbal Communication.
• The thought of harming Basil causes her immense fear and disgust.
• If she harms Basil, she will be infected by a Targeted Rot.

The PerversionBob Twitchy.

• A Plague Drudge
• One of Basil's Lictors.
• Contactable through Quantum Networking.
• Dedicated to the protection of Basil.

Spoiler: Concepts (click to show/hide)

[A las-pistol/rifle]
A cheap, hydrogen battery laser pistol/rifle.

• Small Hydrogen Battery
• Large Hydrogen Battery
• Laser Focusing System
• High-Accuracy Laser Focusing System
• Micro-Reactor
• Plastic Case

[A small hydrogen reactor]
A household hydrogen reactor, capable of outputting 35000 watts with only water as input.

• Large Hydrogen Battery
• Hydrogen Reactor (Small, Household))
• Fuses
• Plastic Case

[A Microreactor]
A tiny microreactor from a las-gun, using energy stored within Hydrogen Batteries to produce light.

• Hydrogen Reactor (Micro))
• Fuses
• Plastic Case

[A cheap space suit]
A thin, cheap space suit.

• Oxygen Tank
• Emergency Sodium Chlorate Heater
• Carbon Scrubbers
• Micro-Medicine Array
• Small Tablet Screen
• Carbon Fiber Cloth
• Water Reclamation System

[A small engine]
A small thruster

• Liquid Hydrogen Tank
• Small Scale Reactor Piping
• Rocket Nozzles
• Engine Moderation Software

[Uni Ľubomíra]
A young man. Born on a dusty mining world. Became an Auxiliary Pirate Marine Lance Corporal. Died to Plague Infection on 43301/10/01.

• Brawling: Amateur
• Shooting: Inept
• Mining: Apprentice

[Plague Ivy]
A multipurpose vascular, manipulation and motile system.

<< <>

[ZBridges]

I think we should volunteer to do the spacewalk. That should earn us some goodwill.

[Superdorf]

((...shoot, I should've paid closer attention to that diagnostic readout))

I think we should volunteer to do the spacewalk. That should earn us some goodwill.

+1

More importantly, if something is out there, we stand the best chance in a fight by far. We can even use Synthesis to aid any needed repairs.

[King Zultan]

Well damn this doesn't sound good, hopefully it isn't to hard to fix.

I think we should volunteer to do the spacewalk. That should earn us some goodwill.

+1

More importantly, if something is out there, we stand the best chance in a fight by far. We can even use Synthesis to aid any needed repairs.

+1

[Devastator]

Don't do the spacewalk.  That's one of our key capabilities, and keeping it secret means that they might think vacuum can keep us prisoner.  It's a good weakness to present, as it'll be easy for our captors to use it as a security method, and we have enough mind powers to influence someone into suggesting that.

What we should do is volunteer to do parts repairs or make a detector.  Say we can reverse entropy and undo damage, repairing things that have been broken or recreating parts that have been lost.

We can do that, it's very useful for the crew, and it isn't the kind of power that is dangerous.


We should start hoarding fissionables with our power for future use.  If we can keep them from decaying, we can also keep them from being detected.  Since we have long periods of time, we can make them through fusion.

[King Zultan]

I figured they give us a spacesuit to use, thus eliminating them finding out we don't actually need it.

[ZBridges]

I also assume that they will provide us with a spacesuit.

[S1lentWanderer]

+1 to Spacewalk, as long as there's a space-suit involved.
While outside, I recommend leaving a small part of yourself out there, attached to the hull, so that you have eyes and ears outside the ship. Never know when knowing what's outside might come in handy.

[Devastator]

There's no need for a spacewalk to put sensors on the outside of the ship.  Can just send dust through the wall.

[King Zultan]

If we can hack in to ship systems couldn't we just use the ship's own sensors and save our dust for something more important?