CHAPTER 1: SOS

[Lex_Innokenti]

The translation from the void into realspace is as unpleasant as it ever was. You figured you'd be used to it by now, but it still feels like someone's punching your guts whilst squeezing your tongues way too hard. Used to be that you'd be sick, but you're kind of old hands at this now... there's a lurch, and your stomach flips over one last time, and suddenly the Searchlight exists in the physical universe again.

Sometimes you wonder why you signed up, but this isn't really one of those times; in a matter of two or three hours, you'll be making history by interacting with history; the Magellan was alway politely assumed 'missing' and publically assumed lost with all hands; a city-ship from a bygone era, indeed. It seems almost disrespectful to be the rescue party for a ship with a passenger manifold of 15,360, when you're all parts of a crew of 12.

Disrespect aside, you wish they'd answer. The Searchlight has been broadcasting, on all frequencies, for over a month now:

"Magellan, Magellan, Magellan... this is DCNV Searchlight, responding. What is your emergency? We are moving to assist; message repeats. Magellan, Magellan, Magellan... this is DCNV Searchlight responding....

[tormsen]

Pierre stares solemnly at the derelict ship through the view screen. He is reminded of the Mary Celeste, the ship that was found lost with all hands. He feels a chill through his body. Then again, space travel is by it's very nature dangerous. Any number of malfunctions could have damaged or disabled the vessel. The most important thing now was to find out whether any of the 15,360 souls on board was still alive.

"I wonder if they could have had some damage to their receivers. They may not be able to hear us. Is there any other way to hail the ship, or simply get noticed?"

[Mr. Handy]

Samantha Golightly monitors the transition from the void in the engine room, making sure that it goes smoothly. This never gets old, she thinks, used to strange sensation. I bet the survivors of the Magellan - assuming there are any - will be fascinated by the Voight-DeAvenant Drive and what it can do. All that time in a generation ship, and we can just zip back and forth now.

[Lex_Innokenti]

The marker bead in the AstroMapper seems distant still as the Searchlight's computer updates the hologram with telemetry information and begins sculpting the surroundings in 3D from light.

"They're off-course." Second Lieutenant Catherine Amantine opines from her seat at Navigation/Tactical. A thick, solid woman with short, iron grey hair and a clipped Point D'atterrissage accent from her time in the security services in French Luna.

"How so, Cat?" Captain Nikolai Vorshevnik looks out over steepled hands at the Nav/Tac station, his blue eyes narrowing in query.

"Well, sir," Cat continues, "the original flight plan for the Magellan pointed them towards a supposedly-habitable world quite a way away from here. They must've changed course at some point during their journey; probably quite some time ago judging by the deviation."

"What can you tell me about their current location? " the Captain asks, his thin fingers brushing a speck of imaginary dust from his shipsuit's arm.

"All I can tell you is that they're in a stable orbit around a planet about two-thirds the size of Terra. The computer's still extrapolating data from the environs."

The Captain nods, stands, and crosses over to AstroMapper to peer owlishly at the blinking blue icon representing your destination. He turns at Pierre's question:

"Not that I can think of, Lieutenant. If their recievers are down, we'll know soon enough in any case."

Spoiler:

This is an opportunity for you to interact with the crew currently on the bridge - Captain Vorshevnik,2L Amantine, Lieutenant Haine Cormorant (currently flying the ship) and Gunnery Officer Sierra Mbane (currently at Comms) - and of course each other. If you have any questions to ask, or OOC comments to make, please spoiler them like I've done here so we can keep them out of the main 'narrative'.

[Mr. Handy]

"How far away are we?" asks Sam. "ETA?"

[Lex_Innokenti]

"Two hours." Amantine responds, "Permission to cycle up the DURGs, Captain?"

"No, not yet. I don't want to go in hot on a friendly that either can't hear us or can't respond. Do see if Mr. Klein is awake, though, and have him stand by at TacWep. It doesn't hurt to be at least a little cautious. You're an Engineer, Sam... what sort of thing do you think could knock out their reciever in such a way as to stop them answering us with anything but 'message recieved' pings?"

[Mr. Handy]

"There are a few explanations I can think of," replies Sam. "It's possible that nobody aboard the Magellan is in any condition to answer our hails." She doesn't want to explicitly say that they could all be dead, but the implication is there. "Or perhaps the fault is in their transmitter. They might be able to receive us just fine, but some glitch is keeping them from sending a response other than the automated one. Obviously their transmitter isn't completely offline, or we wouldn't be getting even that. I won't know for certain what the problem is until I can get over there and take a look for myself."

[Lex_Innokenti]

The Captain nods thoughtfully.

"Which is why you'll be going over there first, Ms. Golightly. I get the feeling that you'll object if I send Mr. Klein and his itchy trigger finger over with you, so Amantine will handle security, and the Lieutenant here can handle the scientific side." He jabs a slender thumb at Pierre, who looks round. ""After 150 years, even Cryotubed, I don't suppose anyone medically trained will make much difference, but Mr. Cormorant will be joining you as he has some Engineering talent, and can handle a gun from time to time also."

Academy Marksman's Lanyard double-recipient Lieutenant Cormorant grins round from the helm at the Captain, his easygoing nature apparent as his gangly frame shakes with mirth. Mbane actually looks a tiny bit relieved that she hasn't been picked, then catches herself and blanks the expression from her pleasant, darkskinned face.

"Any thoughts or suggestions, ladies and gentlemen?" The Captain adds, looking around.

[Mr. Handy]

Samantha smiles at the Captain's remarks about Cormorant. She knows that she's a pretty good shot, but he makes her look like an amateur. When he shot something, it stayed shot. "We don't know the condition of the Magellan," she says, "and it's possible there's been some internal damage. It might be a good idea to bring a vibro-saw in case any parts of the ship are sealed off, rather than finding out the hard way and then needing to go back for one."

[tormsen]

"No-one ever thinks the doctor is needed until it's too late," says Pierre wistfully, At any rate, I will do my best with survivors, and if there are none, try to work out what happened to them."

[Lex_Innokenti]

The Captain smiles a little sadly at Pierre's response. "A fair suggestion about the saw, Ms. Golightly; if the Magellan appears to be heavily damaged then I'll send you over with one. However, as we only have two of them I would be reluctant to have them off the ship unless necessary. If there is nobody to talk to over there, I think we'll cross that particularly ominous bridge when we come to it." He scratches his nose thoughtfully before continuing, "For now, let's operate on the assumption that, given the time since the Magellan vanished, anyone still alive will need to be thawed first. I am loathe to send you over with anything other than sidearms, also, however you and Mr. Cormorant can take rifles... just in case."

He returns to his chair. "Are we recieving any preliminary sensor data, Ms. Amantine?"

"Not much, sir. She appears to be at least mostly intact, though. From this far out, we'd be able to tell if she was in pieces... She's bigger than I expected though... much bigger."

Spoiler:

OOC:I'm going to purposefully not update for a couple of days at least now, as it looks like we may have another couple of players joining us. In the meantime, however, can I get an Idea roll from you please, Handy? Also, welcome back, Tormsen.

[Mr. Handy]

Samantha never was the most creative thinker, and she can't come up with any other ideas.

[Lex_Innokenti]

"Sir," Cormorant pipes up from the helm, "We're in visual sensor range of the planet. Onscreen?"

The Captain indicates his assent, and the viewscreen activates at Cormorant's command, showing your destination for the first time. At this distance, the Magellan is merely a pinprick of silver against the backdrop of the planet it has been orbiting for over a century; a planet quite unlike any you've come across in your careers.

Spoiler:

I require a sanity check from all of you, please. 0 SAN loss for passing, D3 for a failure, and please post the results of the check.

The planet, half-shrouded in darkness at this angle of approach, is a sickly greenish-grey overlaying reddish-brown, like the sheen on over-ripe meat. It is the single ugliest, most uninviting world you have ever seen. Even at this distance, you can see that the winds of the planet blow continent-sized cloud cover at ferocious speeds over its surface; whatever reason the Magellan had for diverting here, it was not because it is a world suited for human habitation. Walking on that surface, even if the atmosphere was entirely breathable, would be complete suicide - the speed of the wind would strip a person from EVA suit down to bone (and perhaps beyond) in mere fractions of a second. Worse still, the green of the atmosphere suggests that the atmosphere is likely to be extremely caustic.

"My god, that's quite a sight isn't it?"Cormorant says, tapping out commands to the sensors and overlaying data onto the viewscreen image. "Ambient temperature is -30 degrees celsius so it's within the tolerance rates of our EVA gear, but the windspeeds are off the chart. We're too far away to get an accurate reading on the atmosphere, but prelims indicate that even without the wind you'd be dead in seconds if you took a lungful of that stuff, and probably messily so at that."

[Mr. Handy]

Sam finds the planet weird, but it's nothing that would shake her. "It's like someone fabricated a planet and didn't really know what they were doing," she says. "Why did the Magellan come here of all places?"

[Priest]

Gunnery Officer Sierra Mbane
With a quick intake of breath Sierra glances up from the coms panel just in time to view the planet on the screen It's appearance startles her but professionalism help her maintain her cool.

Failed,1d100 → [86] = (86) http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4203211/ San loss: 1d3 → [1] = (1) http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4203214/

[Lex_Innokenti]

Lieutenant Matumbo finds the planet's appearance more than a little unsettling, but not unduly so.

[Lex_Innokenti]

Failed SAN Check,For just a moment, you are convinced that the cloud cover swirls around a single point, so that the entire planet resembles a lidless, diseased eye, and you get the distinct and distinctly uncomfortable sense that someone - or something - is looking directly at you.

Captain Vorshevnik licks his lips ever so slightly nervously.

"Rouse the crew, Sierra. I want everyone up here who can get up here. If there's even the slightest possibility we can avoid going anywhere closer to that planet than the Magellan is, I'm all for it... but I want contingencies just in case. Anything more on the condition of the ship, Ms. Amantine? Anyone care to speculate what in the name of the Confederacy the Magellan is doing light years off course, orbiting around a world that looks less inviting than Venus did last time I passed it?"

He looks around at everyone on the bridge, expectantly.

[Mr. Handy]

"Something could be wrong with their navigation systems," suggests Sam. "That would explain why they went off course. They might have ended up here because it was the only planet in the area they could find." Venus does look beautiful from a distance, say from the Earth's surface, she thinks. But yeah, it's not so nice when you get up close. This one would be ugly even from thirty-odd million miles away.

[tormsen]

Lieutenant Matumbo shakes his head, and smiles grimly. "A grim and uninviting place. Then again, Aldous Huxley once wondered whether our own blue orb was the hell of some other planet."

[Priest]

Gunnery Officer Sierra Mbane

Mbane spends a few seconds studdying her information panel, "No coms responses either from the Magellan or that..." She shudders slightly as if suddenly touched by a cold breeze, "That down there"