What can only be described as a distempered maelstrom of radiant energy crashes against the Hyperion's external hull with brutal violence, waking blaring radiation alarms across the span of the derelict station. As the lights begin to flicker in epilepsy and the hull itself groans under the unnatural onslaught of an interstellar energy flare, the crew scrambles blindly through the halls in search of answers. Not a single crew member utters a word as they make their way past overturned metal cots and haphazardly-tilted lockers at jagged angles strewn about what appears to have been the station's crew quarters. Out of sheer fortune, the ragged band spots an airlock imprinted with the bold yet faded lettering; Observation Deck. Sayaks furiously pulls at the airlock's manual release handle with sweat-covered hands until a crew member finds a hideously-bent crowbar among the rubble and trash. As the rust-corroded gears screech a banshee's wail, Sayak's grins and leans in for the final desperate push. As the station begins to spiral into the realm of impossibility and the crew's vision begins to dim, Sayaks shatters the battered frame and smashes the airlock open, just in time to witness what he believes is a radiation-induced bout of feverish insanity; entwined with horrific hallucinations of psychotic proportions.
In times of leisure and civilian study the Observation Deck serves as a place of relaxation and utmost serenity; a portal to pleasant memories and the silhouette of their beloved planet Earth. Today, it serves as a visual gateway into the Realms of the Nether; a swirling mass of ethereal light occluding the space around them, bathing their horror-shocked faces in miasmic pulse of sickening purple glow. Like pitch-black storm clouds in moonlit sky, the demon-gate blinds them with bolts of otherworldly light cast upon the entirety of their vision and reflected upon the station's every surface. In the obscene terror of endless night the station itself comes alive in agony, every beam and plate of metal armor bending as Hyperion screams its terrible death-cry into the voidic phantasm before all falls silent once more. Hushed breathing becomes audible as every sound, every screech, every cry of metallic decay fades into the near-vacuum of space.
All lies silent as the very station holds its breath and waits for what is to come; the inevitable descent into the obscene voidic abyss. The huddled crew screams in unison as the entire station begins to vibrate, gasping under the weight of a thousand forsaken years. What primitive manifestations of fear their tongues have failed to utter as the very walls dematerialize before their disbelieving eyes; in all surety that absolute hysteria possesses their fatigued minds. Some close their eyes and cover their ears in futile attempts to drown the daemon cries of agony, believing their senses betrayed. With eyes wide open, and others held shut, the terrible gravity of their position remains one and the same. Ignorance and denial holds no power in the wounded halls of otherworldly dementia as the Void swallows its prey without mercy.
Mere moments float by as the aged space station is shattered into a thousand fragments and the crew's lungs are void of oxygen. As their eardrums violently burst and their hearts cease to beat, a single madman opens his clouded eyes to gaze upon a vision unspeakable beyond the walls of sleep; the wildest of forbidden dreamscapes ever to plague the human mind. One brave, foolish soul dares to gaze into the Eye of the Abyss as his entire world becomes twisted and broken; his bones crushed under immense depressurization. Pyro, curious under even the most excruciating sufferring, braves the darkest night to witness a truly astounding sight: where once was a flickering cloud of miasmic shadow, swirling blackness as dark as the void, lies a vision as clear as mirror's reflection. In the very center of the otherworldly maelstrom is a clear image of magnificent alien worlds replete with vast cities and countless alien creatures; cast in the same deathly blackish-purple as the flesh upon his face. As consciousness fades and his final breath is given, Pyro smiles and embraces the serenity of death within the vast expanse of space; knowing finally that our reality holds mysteries yet untold. Just before his lungs implode, a faint whisper is echoed into the darkest reaches of the very expanse to which he is unceremoniously sacrificed. Eyes rolling back into his pale and deathly face, the final heart stops beating upon the remnants of the derelict Hyperion.
"...This is the end..."
Blinking profusely, Edio moans in shearing pain as her skull pulsates with pressure. "What the hell was that..." She suddenly realizes that her body lays on the cold, iron floor of one of Hyperion's damaged modules. She sweeps her hair from her bruised face as she tries to rise from the ground, only to fall onto her hands and knees in frustration. "Not this crap again..." With a sigh of frustration she lifts herself from the ground as her arms shake slightly less than her pain-infused leg muscles. A faint rustle can be heard from a within a severely-dented locker buried in rubble and scrap metal, as a low impact reverberates throughout the module. "Damn it! Someone get me out of here!" Twice more Sayaks kicks at the locker's rust-bitten, dented interior before the battered door-frame gives out under the pressure of his frenzied blows. Bursting from the locker in a half-roll, half-tumble, he crashes into an overturned metal cot before scrambling to his feet. Rubbing his pain-streaked head and nursing an injured arm, Pyro stumbles into the chaotic living quarters and exclaims, "I just had the weirdest, most wonderful dream..." before collapsing on the floor; fortunately landing on the corner of a torn mattress. A single enigmatic thought plagues the mind of those assembled, hidden behind their pulsing heads and painful bruises. What on Earth just happened?
In little time the remaining crew finds their way into the messy living quarters only to collapse on the dozen or so torn mattresses strewn about the ground among bent bed-frames and scattered clothing. Ashton violently crashes through the open airlock with a kitchen knife in his hand, frightening the crew half to death. With a look of pure shock on his face, he yells, "You guys are NOT gonna believe this..." Dropping his knife on a random patch of rubble, he runs toward the Observation Deck airlock and breathlessly tears it open like a ravenous animal searching for food. Utterly confused, Sayaks mutters, "I could have sworn that thing was rusted shut..." before following Ashton into Observation. As each man and woman passes through the airlock, the same breathless gasp of inexplicable shock and absolute confusion is uttered. For before their eyes is a sight wholly alien to the reality upheld in their mind and memory. Through the reinforced glass windows of the Observation Deck, every grew member gazes at a massive red planet covered in swirling purple clouds, orbited by a tiny blue speck just beyond their sight. Adwarf blinks, tilts his head, and exclaims "Alright. What gives. That is definitely not planet Earth. Is this some sort of joke? This is a projector screen or hologram, right? Someone? Anyone?" Pyro just shakes his head as an odd creeping smile appears on his face. "So... It wasn't a dream after all... Come on, don't tell me none of you remember watching as a swirling purple wormhole tore the station apart and vaporized our bones... I figured it was some sort of sick, fucked up dream I had, but... This planet... The moon... The freaky constellations like nothing I've ever seen before... This is exactly what I saw when I looked into the void, just before my heart stopped beating. Just before I..." Gulping down on an invisible lump in his throat, Geen turns in time to mutter, "Just before you died..." and plops down on an upturned chair. Edio laughs and replies, "So you're telling me we're orbiting another planet? Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away? This is complete and utter b-" Interrupting her speech, Pyro says, "...Insanity? Hysteria? Yeah, I know. I... I don't know how, but I do know this. Whatever that freaky purple radiation storm was, whatever Physics-breaking trans-dimensional crock we just underwent, that big reddish-purple planet out the window sure as hell isn't Earth. Can anyone else offer an explanation on what the bloody hell we just witnessed?" Shaking his head, Ashton mumbles to himself, "First the Earth gets nuked, then we get frozen for who knows how long... Now, we get sucked into an alternate dimension or who knows what system or galaxy? F-"
Areyoua sighs and explains, "I don't know about the rest of us, but I for one can wait for answers. Rather than host a hippy convention on ruined mattresses after what I must say was the most horrible acid-trip I've ever witnessed, we should probably be useful and figure out where in the hell we are. We need to get that AI online so we can start repairing the station's damage. Sitting here asking stupid questions will get us nowhere." Stroking his chin, Maxinum mumbles, "Yeah, I agree. I'll go take stock of our food supplies... You go have fun with fried electronics if you want, but I for one am friggin' starving!" Ashton picks up his discarded blade and grins before saying, "Yeah... I need to, uh... Put this back where I found it. The kitchen's a little bit of a mess with pots and utensils scattered about, but I think I saw a candy machine somewhere." Slowly but surely, the crew's faces begin to relax as the gravity of their situation becomes less apparent and the drive to persevere hammers through their veins.
The chaos of spacial transmutation thankfully over, the crew quickly find themselves taking positions aboard the battered station, dedicated to survive the new and confusing situation at hand. Sayaks and Comp head north towards the hangars in search of functional equipment and spend the evening struggling to open the Cargo Bay's massive dual-airlocks. With a bit of luck, they find some sort of remote control device that activates the groaning mechanisms buried deep within the ancient rusted airlocks. They are amazed to discover an Aphid-Class Stellar Transport Vehicle, or STV, slightly scratched but physically intact. The interior seating seems to have been torn apart in search of something but Sayaks the pilot and Comp the mechanic decide the STV is fully operational.
Across the station, Ashton casually sharpens his kitchen knife while he chats with his partner in crime. Maxinum eagerly displays the rations he found tucked away in a dented cabinet at the back of the kitchen, alongside a half-full bottle of vodka and two bottles of red wine. Piling his spoils of war on a cafeteria table expertly cleared of debris, he counts 15 units of food along with his lucky find. As they munch on a bit of beef jerky found frozen in the kitchen's storage unit, Ashton and Maxinum get to work clearing the kitchen-cafeteria area of debris and making it serviceable for the crew.
A menagerie of blinking lights half-blind the duo, their eyes grown accustomed to the sickly faint light of the stations' halls. Adwarf and Areyoua count four independent control modules in what must be the station's Bridge. Fidgeting with the rusted control panel of the northwestern console, Adwarf discovers the console monitors energy levels across the station and controls power to each of the station's sectors. From this console, one can switch on and off every door, camera, and light across the station. As neither of the two have much experience with technical systems, they can't make heads nor tails of the information displayed on their screen.
Across the hall and a level below, Edio and Ochita make their way through a decontamination airlock and into a large cargo space. Beyond a stacked pallet of what appears to be metal, a lone console flickers on and off periodically, as if its source of energy is barely intact. Ochita punches a few commands into the console before it shuts off again. Slightly frustrated, he bangs on the console's keyboard while Edio hunches over in the corner. "Ha!" Edio exclaims, as the console flickers into activity and emits a satisfying buzzing sound. "The wires were loose, that's all," Edio says as she grins and circles to the front of the console. Ochita inputs a command into the system and is greeted by an wonderful sight. On the console's blue screen is a scale model of a satellite that houses the AI and supplies its energy source through a solar array. Ochita figures the AI, called ARIA, should be back online in a few hours once its energy stores recharge. Satisfied with their work, the two head to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat after what is undoubtedly the most chaotic day of their lives.
After Geen mentions he plans to find the station's research facilities, ExKirby decides to accompany him and find the Hydroponics Bay. After a long trek past half a dozen rickety ladders and barely-functional elevators, Geen and ExKirby find themselves facing an absolutely wrecked Research & Development module. High-end tools are strewn about as if a tornado had passed through the facility, while the complex machinery have been all but stripped of their parts. They estimate it'll take two-three days to clear the research facilities of debris and collect the scattered tools. ExKirby finds the Hydroponics Bay semi-intact, though the systems are offline and nothing is growing. If anything was ever grown here, it must have atrophied and died a long time ago. At any rate, he figures it'll take a day to plant a few crops, if he can find any seeds. According to a manual found on the ground, the genetically-modified crops present on the station should yield 2 units of food per crop every day. Unfortunately, the equipment required to sustain crops on the station are mostly damaged, meaning we can only sustain perhaps 10 crew members at this time. Geen mentions he saw other crew members in Cryo-Storage, as well as our initial 12, meaning we'll need to expand our food production sooner than later.
Pyro and Roboboy make their way to the Kitchen area and run into Ashton and Maxinum. After a bit of small talk and a string of perverted jokes, Roboboy assists Ashton in gathering the Kitchen's tools while Pyro looks for a map. Out of sheer coincidence, a small paper map of the station's facilities is found among the piles of still junk littering the outer hallway. It appears that the station is designed in a pseudo-symmetrical format with specific departments at each end. To the northwest is Research & Development, North is the Bridge, Northeast is the Mechanical Department, the Central region appears to be a group of 3 connected Hangar Bays with the central hangar serving as a Cargo Bay. The southwest is the Medical Bay while the south is the Crew Quarters he faintly remembers dying near, and of course the southeast is the cafeteria area they first met in, called the Mess Hall. Though the halls are a mess of elevators and ladders, the design is fairly simple to memorize due to its compartmentalized structure.
All in all, the twelve awoken crew members have survived intact what would drive most humans into absolute madness. Though a few screws have undoubtedly been loosened by the whole ordeal, they are confident that they will survive the trials set before them. A number of the crew have begun to question the possibility of piloting aircraft to the large reddish-purple planet they appear to be orbiting, if only to test its atmosphere for survivability. With the R&D Department in shambles, the crew can't expect to conduct any experiments or mechanical work for a few days. The hydroponics bay should be up and running soon, if seeds are found, while a number of the crew have grouped in the Mess Hall for conversation and snacks. Thanks to clever thinking, our crew members have isolated the cause of the AI's disappearance and have ensured the AI will be joining them very soon. Last but not least, two of our crew members have figured that each of the bridge's consoles must control a specific sector of the station. Perhaps a qualified scientist or mechanic should check the bridge and make heads or tails of what they find... This has been a very confusing, extremely chaotic day in the lives of twelve hazy crew members. Not only have they awoken without any memory aboard a floating hunk of steel, but that very same station has been blasted lightyears away into another star system, possibly even across the known galaxy; or time itself. Now facing the realm of theoretical physics and the notion of absolute improbabibility, the crew has many unanswered questions that willl just have to wait. For now, all is well with this band of spacial misfits. But, who knows what the future holds? Surprises lay around every corner on the Space Station: Hyperion!
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Topic: Hyperion:Relaunched (Read 22689 times)