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Wait...
Squeegy hastily assembles his own little Isengard from seat cushions to hold the hateful Martians at bay. A few minutes sitting protected in the padded palisade calms his nerves.
Faris meanwhile is a flurry of activity, rushing about the tiny cabin pulling panels loose and taking stock of every part he can find. Inventory completed, he scratches out some possible plans for a robot with a towelette and his own blood. By stripping out non-critical parts of the console and cannibalizing some of the space suit, he could build a remote controlled machine. Unfortunately, there's nothing to use for a drive system.
Meanwhile, the console radio chirps that it's found another signal.
Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine, Neon... Potassium?
Against the protestations of your cranium, you try some mental exercises to keep your neurons firing. It works, and combined with sitting down in the cold, your mind clears itself. Your head still hurts, but you're steadied now.
The robot explorers have picked up some radio signals, but they're all automated distress and locater beacons. You figure the sky will be full of them for a while, and there's nothing you can do for now. You set the bots to alert if they pick up non-standard traffic and tell them to explore the crater on their own. That taken care off, you start disassembling other bots to rig a large solar array.
The bots being piecemeal affairs, the work is easy enough. You solder some wires and affix the arrays to hard points, and before long, you've rigged two robots together into a panel-train, at the cost of four others. Actually getting it out the airlock might be problematic. The bigger hurdle will be transferring power from a robot outside the module to the computer inside it. Hopefully you can do something with the exterior system ports.
About then, you notice the explorers have picked up more radio signals. Down in your pit, they can't get much besides static, but you catch a few snippets of voices.
Serg tacitly agrees with Vlad's assessment as she sets to work. The few air leaks left are all under the water line, so she seals off every valve she can before digging out the repair kit, stowed for such purposes. She manages to drag Rosie into helping for a few minutes, before Rosie desperately goes back to fiddling with suit radios.
Vlad meanwhile pulls himself into a pressure suit and heads outside. The module doesn't actually have an airlock, but in an unnerving bit of design expectation, access is through a tiny office room that serves the function well enough. It costs a bit of air with every such use though.
Outside, the leaks in the hull are easy to spot, where little ice crystals form for a minute before breaking off. With no other tools handy, Vlad tries piling some Martian sand over the leaks. After a few minutes inspection, it seems to work, as no water is coming out. Some more tiny crystals form, but after some confusion Vlad notices that the crystals aren't leaking out, but rather are dropping out of the sky in what could only be called a snowfall.
Back inside, Rosie's scouring of the waves finally pays off. Between all the static and beeps, the suit radio finds a voice, American by the sound of it, but it's not clear who. Rosie and then Serg do their best to get the voice's attention – it's carrying on a conversation, but not with them, and whoever it is isn't coming through on this end.
Cycling through the radio channels, you pick up strings of beeps and static, automated signals with no one to talk too. While the radio searches for conversation, you take the light off it's mount (it's portable).
After a couple minutes, the cycle stops on an actual voice, nervously calling out for any other survivors. You establish contact, but the other operator has a hard time picking you up. It's enough though, and you both acknowledge – it's Andrezj Mosciski, the American engineer. You wildly congratulate each other on still being alive, and exchange all you know, which isn't much. Andrezj is in the large mission rover, itself stuck in the wreckage of Vehicle Bay 2. He hasn't contacted anyone else yet, and has no better idea of where he is than you do.
Augusta tries in vain to pass off that she's steady enough to not need help. Which is still more than can be said for the bridge, now slightly sealed, but still whistling and groaning. Captain Uchio insists that you'll all have to get out of the module. How is another matter. With only two suits, only two people can be outside.
Tetsuo tries to argue the point with you, now on edge falling back into military mode. You leave him to find some emergency medical supplies in what's left of the ship's corridor. Augusta gets some quick painkillers, but will need care regardless.
There's only a few other air leaks, and your mud method works well enough. The patches do require some tending to keep from falling off or sucking through. In addition to your air problem, there's water seeping out of some cracks in the tanks. You mud what you can reach before realizing that mud isn't going to hold back water. No other idea presents itself, so you take stock of what else in the lab survived.
The terrariums take up most of the room, and there's nothing in them but dirt and critters of course. You've got a few large tanks of bug food and food bugs. The water system is leaking obviously - there's about thirty gallons all together, and nowhere for it to go but the floor. The system has a good filter to deal with the creature waste, and there's plenty of filter changes. This module wasn't meant to be by itself, so there's not a lot of other items. You've got a research computer, specialized tools for handling the animals, pieces of lab equipment, and some office supplies. There's an emergency battery powering the lights somewhere in here, but it's probably buried in the structure.
Pitor tries his best to be reverent, and Louise and Geoffrey stand patiently, though Geoffrey makes sure to show his displeasure at not doing something. Vernon doesn't even have that much courtesy, already pulling on a space suit and talking over the eulogy. “Dammit, stop wasting air. We're aloive, we're gonna stay aloive. An' d'first thing we gotta do s'get owt and foind d'rest of d'ship.”
When asked his opinion afterwards, Geoffrey mostly agrees. “'E is almost right. We shuld seal off oll of the leaks in 'ere, den we can go outside for exploring.” He also manages to stop Vernon from charging out of the door – none of the systems attached to the Engineering bay survived the fall, so there's no airlock. Vernon insists that with a little speed and nerve, the door could closed fast enough for a person to get through without losing too much air, but Pitor and Geoffry convince him to at least wait until everyone is suited up.
The last tank valves are locked down, and the cracks that can be repaired at all are quickly sealed with industrial caulks. Actually putting the plumbing back into working condition is a whole other matter, and would likely take hours. The system computer is non-functional, so assessment is done by ear. Some of the tanks are leaking to outside of the ship and some are unsalvageable, but the pressurized tanks survived well enough. The tanks that suffered most were the simple water ones, but there's still hundreds of gallons left not counting what's on the floor.
While all of this is going on, Louise roams about the bay. Something about Pitor's word for the dead left her unnerved. She starts frantically searching for any more air leaks or structural defects despite assurances to the contrary, and seals her space suit back up.
You clench your teeth like a proper soldier, and cram your arm into the pressure suit, simultaneously squeezing the bone into position. Maybe not exactly the right position, but it feels correct through the fog of pain. Getting the helmet on has it's own difficulties with needing two hands. After all that, you have to spend a minute just holding your arm to stay steady.
Back on your feet, you drop the non-essentials and crank open a door. Despite yourself, you gape at the landscape – vast hill country of tumbled rocks and gullies, all burnt orange, stars twinkling through a pink sky alongside the sun. Now added to the wasteland is the panoply of wreckage from the ship, mostly half-melted pieces that survived reentry only as solid metal.
You pull yourself away for what you set out to do. The construction pod is no longer in danger of collapsing, now that the rest of the air escaped through the door. You one-arm your unfortunate companion outside and into a crack in the ground. A few kicks covers his frozen body with sand, and you mark the spot with a few pipes.
Now, it's just you Mars, and you take stock of your new foe. Your pod landed on the slope of a mountain - the remains of the Ares III are strewn across the length of the valley below. Small bits and pieces track off for a couple miles in one direction, while some large chunks dropped in the other direction, most inside of a mile. The closest are two big cubes and what looks like the bridge of the orbital half of the Ares, all arrayed a few hundred yards around you. Stowing your effects as best the room allows, you heft the medical bag and spare air tanks for the hike.
Bizarrely, just as you set off, you notice some sparkles in the air. Looking up, the sky suddenly fills with little white flakes – if you didn't know better, you'd say it was snowing.
To take further stock, you walk around the top of whatever you landed on, before hopping off to give it a last look. It was one of the scientific base modules, but except for size there's no way telling them apart from the outside. You can see little jets of steam shooting out in places – it has air, though escaping. Even as you watch, the jets die off one by one.
You shortly find a door at one end of the pod. The controls refuse to do anything, so you give it a vigorous pounding. A few moments later, you hear a pounding in return (through your helmet pressed against the wall). Overjoyed at finding someone else alive, you give an excited rapport, and get another in return. Your joy turns to frustration with a twinge of fear when you realize they're not letting you in. You try pounding on the doorframe and around the controls, and get thumping all over the wall in response, but apparently the message isn't getting across through wall slapping. You can't imagine what else the other person thinks you're saying except “Open the door”, but it's just not happening.
As if the environment couldn't get any more forbidding, you see little white flakes landing on your suit. It doesn't seem possible, but it looks like it's snowing.
With a lot of sliding, dragging, and maneuvering, you move all the junk scattered around the bay onto the part where the Auger itself isn't the floor. In the process, you get the work rover back it's feet, but the power core is busted off it's mounting in addition the thrashing the whole frame took. Neither the rover or backhoe has an enclosed cab though, so you still can't leave.
Everything now arranged as best it will be, you start freeing the Auger. It's fully powered, so you retract the flexible parts and try to squeeze it out of place, but no luck. Wrenching with your digger works better, along with making a lot of groaning noises. You could get it lose, given some time, but you're worried about breaking part of one or the other.
With all-wheel drive and universal steering, you're confident the rover can worm it's way out. With only a few inches to maneuver in, you get a rhythm going and rock the rover back and forth in place. You can see debris moving, but there's no telling how long it could take to break free. You know you have some time though – the air tanks are full, and somebody stashed some junk food in the module for later along with a few bottles of water.
Even so, frustrated and nervous, you search through every channel the radio can pick up. Most of the replies are locater beacons and automated distress signals. But at last you stop on a channel with a French voice shouting for attention. It's a very weak signal and you occasionally lose him in static, but with some patience you establish conversation with Dietrich Sacharov. After a brief celebration, you tell each other what little you know. Dietrich has a space suit and is still in a escape pod, but hasn't tried leaving it yet. He also hasn't heard any other signals.
You're momentarily thankful for the numbness in your leg as you grab the tarantula cage. As soon as you undo the cage the arthropod makes a break for it, and disappears somewhere into the module. With the bits and pieces you've amassed, and some grit, you immobilize your broken bone (it's a shin, by the way). Your splint isn't great, and standing on your leg is out of the question, but you can hop about at least.
The Observation Pod was meant to be a control tower for the landed base, but first has to be deployed. You pull yourself up to the computer a run a system check. The radio and sensors are offline until set up, but everything looks to be okay. Nothing else to do, so you push the button, and the pod starts lifting and unfolding...
Dr. Saberi reluctantly immobilizes her arm with your help, and you both set about finding leaks and patching them with plastic sheeting and medical adhesive. No such work does much to stop the odd groans from the corners, or the weird thumping from the roof. Your brief fear that you're getting paranoid isn't helped by the shadows you see moving outside the little windows.
Consequently, you nearly jump out of your skin when a heavy pounding comes from the main door. Then you realize that on Mars, the only thing it could be is a person on the other side. You and the Doctor run to the door and pound back in return. The other person responds, and this quickly devolves into an unproductive hammering session. You're sure the person outside wants you to open the door, but that would be just shy of suicidal. Shideh says the other door through the little office, at the other end of the pod, might work as an airlock, but trying to lead the outsider along the wall with more pounding doesn't seem to communicate the message.
Many people are either about to do something, just finishing something, now in contact and about to discuss stuff, or stuck with choices to make. This turn will be about 10 minutes – think a little less time than you've had each turn so far.
I had originally planned to add punishing modifiers to inane actions, but I've had a change of heart. I'll honor ridiculous actions, and in the case of really good successes, even actual positive effects. Squeegy's great reference aside though, this is not turning into MSPaint Adventures. I'm not creative enough for that.
I tried adding an accent to the conversations with Geoffrey and Vernon. If this sort of thing is annoying, just say so and I'll drop it.
Added a note about Pressure Suits in the master post. It's not really helpful for anyone right now, but good to know.
I promise I'll actually detail the Ares III tomorrow. Or Sunday. Fury Road beckons.
Other corrections will go here as they inevitably arrive.
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Topic: Angry Red Planet - Totally And Completely Dead (Read 48163 times)