Trapped! Defying Destiny

[tgva8889]

Lydia Morrison, of the Hope Killer - Medical Bay

Lydia looks at Giovanni's hand as he offers it. Suddenly realizing she can move, she swiftly grabs it and uses its assistance in helping her stand once more. Once in a standing position, she looks at Thoft with a slight amount of fear. Nevertheless, her face betrays her apologetic stance towards him. Almost as if she realizes what she's done, Lydia turns quickly away from Thoft, almost as if she's afraid to talk to him.

As Giovanni and Thoft start discussing how they might reach the cafeteria, Lydia turns to look around the medical bay once more. Something in the room was calling to her, and Lydia knew exactly what it was. Despite having resisted for the past five or so minutes, the hunger in Lydia begins to overpower her. Almost looking for any excuse to stay in the medical bay, Lydia quickly comes up with a reason. "What about Caroline? Shouldn't we bring her with us? She'll probably want some food, too." Before either of them can react, she's already moving towards the medicine cabinet, though she does so in the most nonchalant way imaginable.

[TheOutlander]

Thoft- Medical Bay


Lydia stepped back and turned away from Thoft, embarrassed that she struck him perhaps? She began backing away, trying for an excuse not to go with Thoft and Giovanni. While it might be the social awkwardness of travelling with someone she just attacked, Thoft remembered the future, she COULDN'T stay here, it would kill her, and Giovanni, and as Thoft didn't see himself, he didn't have much hope for himself.

"We'll bring her something back." Thoft said, grabbing her arm, "you CAN'T stay here, you'll die."

He was a little rougher than he'd like to be with her, but it was her life at stake, and the rest of the crew. And she didn't need to be next to the dead body any longer, just in case she decided to take Caroline's life next.

If she struggles, Thoft wouldn't be opposed to carrying her over his shoulders out of the medical bay, as it's her life at stake and all.

He turns to Giovanni, nodding his head slightly. "Lets go."

[tgva8889]

Lydia Morrison, of the Hope Killer - Medical Bay

As Thoft grabs her arm, Lydia turns to face him. The look in her eyes changes, but not to the same feral look as before. Her eyes appear strained and bloodshot. Something in her face changes, and she grabs Thoft's arm. Digging her nails in, she looks him in the eyes. "Let. Go." Closing her eyes and focusing, Lydia forces her implants to start working again. A single spark flies from her fingertips, touching skin and flesh. Though it isn't strong enough to explode into real lightning, the spark is enough to heat.

"Don't tell me what I'm allowed to do, Thoft. I'm not afraid of burning you. I didn't ask you to save me. Let me go." The heat around her hand dims for a moment, but it sparks up again as Lydia releases another single spark from her fingers. "You have no idea of what I'm capable of." Desperation is in her eyes. Something about her seems strange, but it's not the same as before. She still has the same Lydia in her, but there's something in her mind that's twisting it. Her grip tightens, but it's not out of malice. More like desperation.

[ForzaFiori]

Giovanni

Wanting to intervene before another fight, Giovanni steps into Thoft's and Lydia's conversation. How about this Lydia. Since Thoft seems worried about you going back, I'll go ask Caroline if she wants to come or to join us. Is that ok? That way we see if Caroline wants food, so that solves your dilemma, You stay here, so Thoft is cool, and you don't die, which would make me happy. See? We all win. Now you two just stay put, please. I'll be right back. If they agree, he sets off down the hall back to the med bay, arriving and going up to Caroline. Hey, Caroline? Its me, Giovanni. Lydia, Thoft, and I were gonna go get some food, we were wondering if you wanted to come? Its been a while since any of us have ate.

[ubersquid]

Janks - Main Engineering

"Seems clear."

Janks speaks with a sneer as he peers through the grating of a ventilation shaft with the crazy young girl that darted out of one of them on the Hope Killer still vividly in his memory.

He then walks around and looks at the reactors like a visitor in a museum.

"Built to last, eh? Thousands of years old and still running."

"There is something i was thinking about, Conway... This ship is inside some sort of cave right? That Wyndell guy might be a decent pilot but i doubt he could fly it through one of the tunnels we came in here. So... how are we gonna get it out?"

"Hey if you need a hand..." Janks grimaces "... just tell me."

Then he is suddenly startled by Wyndells voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere. His eyes dart around the room until he walks up to a flashing keypad next to the entrance. Inspecting it for a moment, he decidedly pushes a single button.

"Hello? This is Janks. Everything OK down here... basically... We found the guy... and showed him. Conway lost his hand when he destroyed the sphere though. The reactors look good from what I can tell... but Conway just started working on them"

[Inspectre]

(Indeed they do, and curse you for being a ninja ubersquid! )

Matthias manages a short bark of a laugh at Jank's comment. "Just like old times indeed. Ugh, it's felt like years since we've woken up with everything that's happened."

Matthias sobers as they begin to move down the hallway again. He walks with his stump down at his side, mostly out of his line of sight, and with his remainning hand lightly brushing along the wall as he walks, ready to steady himself if his legs suddenly go weak. "And his name was Sage. He died after those bitches we encountered cut a hole in his suit, allowing engine coolant to enter. Terrible needless death, just like so many others. Too many."

Matthias remains silent the rest of the way down to the engine room, brooding over the loss of his hand and so many people who despite being convicts like him, didn't desire to die in any of the myriad of horrible ways that had occured on-board the Hope Killer and that were now occuring here as well.

As they approach the engine room doors, Matthias silently takes note of the cryo-stasis room just outside: he would need to check that room next on his way back to the medical bay. Thankfully, the engine room doors slide open easily and reveal the happy surprise that everything here seems to be in good working order. It should just be a simple matter of increasing the flow of fuel into the reactors to generate the additional power necessary to bring the ship back up to full power. But Matthias wasn't used to anything being so simple.

"Janks, in addition to keeping an eye out from anything hiding in dark corners, I need you to go around to the consoles around this room and type in the following command: "/cmd statusfeed main". That should route status reports from every console into the central one where I'll be working at, which means I won't have to move around the room to double-check to ensure everything is ready to be brought up to full power. As for piloting the ship out of here, I might have been able to do it. I've piloted a few ships in my years. Not sure if I'd manage it with my "handicap" however." For just a moment, Matthias snickers, madly, at his pun before the reality of his situation once again sobers up his latest bout of madness.

As he moves over to the central console, Matthias hears the intercomm squak to life. With Janks answering it, however, Matthias doesn't feel the need to add much. Hoping to put Wyndell's mind at ease, however, Matthias calls over his shoulder while he continues to slowly type status commands into the console. "I'm fine for the moment! Will head back to medical once the ship is up and running!"

[tgva8889]

Lydia Morrison, of the Hope Killer - Medical Bay

"No. I need to go back. I need to...get something." Desperation begins to appear more and more evident. She begins to pant a bit. "Giovanni, I need something in there. I..." She shakes her head and looks around for a moment, as if mentally fighting herself. "I...I..." She looks at Giovanni, as if asking him what she wants. Turning back to Thoft, she looks down and realizes what she's doing. Still trying to figure out what she wants, Lydia clenches her free hand into her fist. She clenches her eyes closed, shaking her head as she does. "L-Let go, Thoft. Please...let go."

[Pwenet]

Narration #21 – This Ancient Shell Returns to Life

• Chasing the Second Star – Bridge
  • Firespark – Wyndell Tedarri
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Using Stims – Enhanced Coordination and Mental Functioning
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Custom-Made Contacts
        • Custom-Made Glasses – Connected to PTC providing a HUD linkup with it.
        • Personal Computer Terminal - This portable computer terminal is a common piece of equipment. A universal adapter allows it to be plugged into any normal computer terminal, bypassing its functions and allowing on access to the core programming of the terminal, making it easier to make changes or access systems that shouldn't be accessed normally.
          
          It is 17" wide and 12" long and 2" deep, and weighs about 5 pounds. The screen is an adaptive display, able to be changed to what the user prefers, and it is very durable.
        • Medical Laser Scalpel – A common medical tool this scalpel generates a laser that can be adjusted to determine the amount of time it would take to cut through flesh and bone. At the lowest level it will slowly cut open skin, at the highest it has been compared to a “lightsaber” from some obscure movie back in the 20th century, however at the highest power setting it will drain the battery in a matter of minutes. It can cut flesh and cauterize it at the same time aiding in surgeries to help control bleeding.
  • Mordokai – Misty Reviere
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Cuts, scrapes and bruises over body
        • Arrow wound penetrating left shoulder – Treated and Bandaged
        • Arrow wound lower back – Treated and Bandaged
        • Arrow wound left upper thigh – Treated and Bandaged
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Armored Survival Backpack – This backpack contains basic survival supplies including the following:
          • Vibration-charging Flashlight/Lantern – Uses the vibrations generated by movement to charge an internal power source. Need more power, shake it!
          • Air/Water Distiller – This device can absorb the ambient moisture in the air and collect/filter it to provide a source of drinking water. Also contains a hose that can be used to suck in water from other sources where it will be filtered and purified.
          • Multi-Purpose Tool Kit – Containing a small amount of tools that can be used for the most basic of repairs of devices.
          • Communications Relay – This device is a complex communications relay that can be used to signal orbiting ships or link various systems together to provide a means of communication.
        • Emergency Medical Kit – This medical kit comes with basic bandages, medications, various devices and a compact scanner used to help treat people.
  • The Narration
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    Establishing communications with the Engineering bay goes smoothly and easily. After exchanging words there are several minutes of silence, and then the deck starts to vibrate. The hum of power ripples through the ship and the lights fully activate, bathing the ship in bright white light. The control panels fully activate as the ship systems receive the desperately needed power to run them.
    
    A quick check of the engine controls reveals that the sublight engines are starting warm-up firings and that the FTL cores are starting to spin up. The FTL computer activates as well and starts automatically running scans of the system to establish a fix of the ships location within the galaxy to being the complicated calculations to do a FTL jump.
    
    In addition the ship systems fully activate as well, with all of them showing nothing abnormal except the FTL sensors. The FTL sensors are used to perform a scan of the destination coordinates while the ship is out of conventional space/time for handful of seconds. They are unable to detect fine details of the destination, like other ships but they can detect large objects of mass, like moons, planets and stars. They are a failsafe line that has saved many a ship by reverting it back to realspace, though they have been known to make a ship mis-jump depending on when the mass readouts were detected.
    
    Looking over the readouts Wyndell sees something that has to be impossible or a malfunction of the sensors. They are detecting fluctuating area of mass that simply can’t exist, for according to them black holes are opening and closing in orbit, the planet vanishes and turns into a moon before returning and that Conclear radiation is spiking and then vanishing. All of this is taking place within seconds in constant loops yet the remaining sensors show that everything is perfectly fine.
  
  
• Chasing the Second Star – Main Engineering
  • Inspectre – Matthias Conway
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Using Stims to keep running – Enhanced Speed and Mental Functioning
          [*[Right Hand Destroyed – Stump Cauterized
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
  • Ubersquid – Raul 'Janks' Jenkins
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Arrow Wound in Buttocks – Treated with Antidote that is preventing bleeding.
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Repair Kit – This kit contains an assortment of tools used for common repairs along with some raw supplies that could be needed. In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing they can repair armor and even make basic ammunition with the contents.
        • 4mm Defender Rifle (Empty) – This rifle is a standard weapon that can be used against armored targets. Firing 4mm solid state slugs it can damage/penetrate most personal body armors. Carrying a 100 round magazine per cartridge it is a very sturdy weapon as well and simple to maintain, aiding it in working in most environments despite abuse. It is fondly related to the ancient AK-47 rifle when compared to durability and reliability.
        • 2mm Semi-Automatic Needle Pistol – This pistol uses tiny rounds that are designed to penetrate organic matter and shatter within, causing massive internal damage to the target. These rounds are ineffective against armored targets for the rounds will simply shatter against harder substances. Used on most ship as basic security because they will not penetrate the hull if discharged. Each cartridge contains 20 rounds.
  • The Narration
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    Starting work at the main control panel Matthias finds that it is in good condition. However there are minor changes, tiny little things that would be unnoticed to but the most experienced eye. Power conduits have been routed differently using parts that are unrecognizable except in the most basic functionality. Various bits of the bulkheads show faint weld marks. Several of the controls look newer than others. Pulling up the specifications for the reactor itself Matthias notices that it has been completely overhauled recently with a configuration that he has only seen in hypothetical designs from his own era that would provide more power for less fuel than the original designers could have created.
    
    As Janks makes his way around typing in the command more and more windows appear on the monitors showing that the systems are all online. The only one that seems to be giving issues are the FTL sensors which are displaying strange readings every few seconds. Typing in the needed commands Matthias flips the final manual switches and the main reactor fully activates.
    
    With a deep vibration that ripples through the ship all the lights on the ship activate. A quick check of the displays shows that the engines are warming up and the FTL cores are starting preliminary spin cycles. Various clanging and snapping sounds can be heard which Matthias recognizes as signs of a ship first activating many of its systems. No matter how old this ship was it had apparently been rebuilt to a near-new condition at some point in its history.
    
    Checking the displays Matthias sees that there is one thing lacking and that is fuel for the ship, however there should be enough for several decent jumps and a few months of power besides that.
    
    Janks meanwhile continues to check the dark corridors but finds no traces of any homicidal young girls that are going to leap out of air vents. Most of the space is taken up by large pieces of equipment that he can’t really identify however he does get an idea of which columns and beams are used for support and which are used for equipment. Yet what he does find are several equipment lockers, which when opened only reveal nothing as if they had been stripped clean.
    
    The deck below the two starts to vibrate more as the engines start their initial warm-up firings.
  
  
• Chasing the Second Star – Medical Bay
  • The_Snark – Caroline Walker
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Eyeballs Burnt out of Sockets
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Emergency Medical Kit – This medical kit comes with basic bandages, medications, various devices and a compact scanner used to help treat people.
  • mf11 – Giovanni Fiori
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition: Damaged Throat – Able to Breath but can only whisper.
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Sharp shards of a shinbone from a Corpse – Taken from one of the dead crewmembers onboard Chasing the Second Star it can serve as a cudgel, but due to the age it is not very durable. The shinbone itself was shattered and now all that remains are very sharp fragments.
  • TheOutlander – Dane “Thoft” Thoftsten
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition: Severe Mental Fatigue
      • Equipment:
        • Standard Ship Uniform – This uniform is made of a tough material to resist tears and scratches, with many pockets and places to attach and hold items.
  • tvga8889 – Lydia Morrison
    • Vital Statistics
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      • Condition:
        • Severe head wound – Treated and Healing
        • Under the influence of Mersical – Pain free and high as a kite
      • Equipment:
        • Torn Prisoner Jumpsuit – The remains of a standard issue cyro-stasis prisoner jumpsuit. It preserves your modesty to the degree that the wearer desires, but offers no extra protection.
        • Severed Metallic Arm of Malaki Shares – This is the severed artificial arm from Malaki. No longer connected to him it does not work, yet it is of a sturdy design and could function as an emergency weapon or tool if needed.
  • The Narration
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    Resting in a state that is not quite sleep yet not fully conscious the conscious mind of Caroline Walker roams through logs of a long dead era. Much of what she has found is simply routine logs of a dying ship devoid of life except for a few sparks kept alive in a frozen embrace. Drifting through space the ship is assaulted by meteorites, radiation spikes and its own failing systems. Weeks turn into months, which stretch into long years which fade into decades that turn into dreams of centuries.
    
    Systems start to fail one by one with the automatic systems unable to compensate. Even though the ship is devoid of any sort of true AI a sense of weariness and dread can be felt touching the logs as more and more systems fail and enter their final slumber
    
    Yet one day there is contact against the hull. Dead sensors attempt to peer into what is touching the ship yet they can’t see anything. A presence floats through the airless corridors, touching systems with light and life. Little sparks of life merge into the ship as the ship finds it floating down towards a planet.
    
    Many decades pass as the one figure works on the ship. The work is slow yet steady; doing what takes a full shipyard crew to complete by itself. Systems are carefully taken apart, examined and put back together better than before. The hull is patched with delicate care and sealed. Modifications that are beyond the realm of understanding are made, all of this going on without disturbing the sparks of life.
    
    Finally the ship systems, repaired and working again are placed into a slumber, to await a time when they would be needed again.
    
    Lights activate through the Medical Bay, fully illuminating it. The hum of power runs through the ship as systems activate. As if linked to the ship Caroline awakens as well as the distant memories of the logs runs through her mind. Feeling surprisingly refreshed she finds that she is getting used to the strange new vision she possesses to replace her lost eyes.
    
    As the systems activate Thoft looks around at the lights and memories of the ship fill his mind. He knows where to go to find food, where to go to find weapons, where to go to rest.
    
    For Lydia, her mind stressed by all that is going on the rush of power seems to fill her as well, and she feels power start to tingle in his fingers where mesh of metal and wires reside. Power that still can’t be tapped due to the weight of addiction, pain and sorrow.
    
    Looking around in terror the native bolts from the chamber.
    
    For Giovanni he continues to hold Lydia, trying to save her from herself.

[ubersquid]

Janks - Main Engineering

Janks follows Matthias' orders as good as possible, although he needs some time finding most of the keys on the complicated keypads. He raises his head in surprise when the reactors fire up at first but then grins widely.

"Bay-Bee! Purrs like a kitty. Nice one, Conway." Janks heartily slams his hand against one of the reactors.

Walking to the door he turns around again and looks at the whole room suspiciously as if to make sure the whole thing wouldn't cave in in the next few seconds.

"Are we done here?"

[TheOutlander]

Thoft- Holding on to Lydia

"Lydia, follow this path, and you'll be the dead one Giovanni finds before he's eaten. I don't want that for you, and neither do you, why don't we pull away from the medicine cabinet and get to the cafeteria, that will actually nourish our bodies. When was the last time you ate? "
Noting that she curled her hand into a fist, Thoft readied himself for the hit, but continued speaking. "The Lydia I know doesn't want what's in that cabinet, and I'd die before I let you continue this rediculous addiction."

He paused,

"I'm not afraid of death, poison me, bludgeon me, stab me, shoot me, boil me, electrocute me, drown me, eat me, strangle me, but please... don't continue to ruin your life the way I did."

He exposed his neck to her for a second and a half, letting go of her for a split second.

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If she does nothing, he will start walking backwards,

If she attacks him, he'll headbutt her, and grab her.

If she talks to him, he will reply.