NationStates Jolt Archive

((OOC Note: this and all future dialogue translated to English for ease of the reader’s comprehension, and all figures translated into metric terms, time translated to 24-hour system. Closed RP between Arizona Nova and myself.))

Deep within a complex on an unidentified world, dozens of humanoids scurry about a large, metallic vessel. They are performing last-minute checks, repairs, and inspections. To the untrained eye, from a distance, they appear to be simply humans, but up close the differences become readily visible. They have much larger eyes than humans, with a filmy inner eyelid. Their neck sports gills, and their fingers, which are much longer and more dexterous than an average human, are webbed. A warning klaxon is sounded, and all but seven of the humanoids scurry out of the chamber. The seven gave a moment at the vessel, and then climb aboard, sealing the hatch behind them. Minutes later, the chamber begins to flood with water, and once it is flooded, the giant bay doors open, and the one hundred and forty meter long craft slips out into deep blackness.
Onboard the vessel, five of the seven crew are seated in what you can assume is the bridge. The five humanoids gave into the blackness, as the throb of the ship’s engines slowly pushes it to the surface.
Commander Toras: “Helmsman, how long until we surface?”
Lieutenant Keren: “17 minutes, 53 seconds, sir.”
Commander Toras: “Very good lieutenant. Comms, do we have contact with the seabase?”
Lieutenant Terrik: “Yes Sir, we will be able to switch over to main command once we surface.”
Commander Toras: “Very good.”
The ship surfaces, a gleaming metallic vessel, and painted on the side you see a pair of crossed katana-like swords, and what you interpret as “X-303” painted on the ship’s hull. The vessel is built quite oddly, and you can only assume that it is an experimental test bed for some kind of new technology, or technologies. After waiting on the surface for a few minutes, the vessel suddenly lifts into the clouded, yellow-tinted atmosphere, and begins its ascent towards the sky. The humming of the engines is clear now, and you can make out a series of fans spinning at very high revolutions on either side of the ship, but the source of its lift is still a mystery.
Commander Toras: “This is X303 to main command, do you copy?”
Main Command: “Confirmed X303, reading you loud and clear. We are tracking your ascent, and have taken over data collection. We estimate another 7 minutes before you exit the atmosphere.”
Commander Toras: “Confirmed, thank you command.”
Minutes later, the ship appears in space, and a new change has occurred. The fans are no longer spinning, but a pair of engines on the back end of the ship is pushing it deeper into space. They appear to b a plasma-based drive, and are pushing the vessel at a moderate acceleration away from the watery planet. Minutes later, the vessel’s engines extinguish themselves, and a series of panels open on either side of the ship.
Commander Toras: “Engineering, prime the jump drive, and begin the charging sequence.”
Tech Krezky: “Yes sir, we have begun spinning up the jump core, capacitor is charged.”
Commander Toras: “X303 to main command, we are preparing for our preliminary test jump, expect data loss in approximately 30 seconds, and restoration 10 seconds after that.”
Main Command: “Confirmed X303, good luck.”
The Ship suddenly blinks, and disappears. Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, the vessel reappears, and the open panels begin to close. The ship’s long-range antenna extends from the bridge section, and begins transmitting data packets at the speed of light back to the command planet.
Commander Toras: “Congratulations on our first successful jump, as soon as we receive confirmation from main command that everything is operational we will prepare for our second jump.”
Main Command: “X303, this is main command, do you read?”
Commander Toras: “Confirmed command, first jump was a success, and we are prepped for our second jump.”
Main Command: “Confirmed X303, we read no anomalies, begin countdown sequence when you are ready. Main Command out.”
Commander Toras: “You heard the man, Engineering, begin starting jump sequence.”
Tech Krezky: “Aye sir, charging capacitor and beginning to spin up the core.”
The engine room located two decks below the bridge is currently occupied by Techs Krezky, and Kyutos. The pair of them operates the vessel’s complicated power and propulsion systems, from the planetary Repulsors, to the jump drive, to the massive fusion reactor. One room forward, the jump core and its massive power capacitor are slowly coming to life. The Core begins to spin, slowly up to the precise 7632.3 revolutions per minute required for a jump.
Tech Kyutos: “Core stabilizing at 7632.3 RPM… wait, its hit 7632.5, still accelerating slowly, I think we should shut it down.”
Tech Krezky: “I’ll inform the Commander.” “Commander Toras, we have a problem.”
Commander Toras: “What is it engineering?”
Tech Krezky: “The Core is spinning at slightly too high RPMs, and the capacitor seems to be carrying an excess charge, I suggest we shut it down until we can identify the problem.”
Commander Toras: “Nonsense, a slight change in speed shouldn’t affect the jump. Begin countdown, Helm.”
Ensign Kalov: “Aye sir, 62 seconds to jump.”
Tech Krezky: “Sir, I suggest against this.”
Commander Toras: “Objections noted, Tech.”
Tech Kyutos: “The Core has reached 7635.4 RPM, and is beginning to slow, I suggest we shut it down.”
Tech Krezky: “The Commander has decided to go ahead with the jump, I am under orders to continue running the core until the jump.”
Seconds later, the vessel disappears. Two light-years from the Homeworld, the designated exit point, no vessel appears. Main command is unable to raise the X303 on comms, and all hope seems lost that they survived the jump.
Light-years away, in what is known as the Perseus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, a small, gray ship appears over an inhabited planet. The Ship holds its position over the planet for several minutes, before a massive explosion rocks the vessel. As the debris clears, the starboard turbine no longer exists, and smoke and fuel are streaming from the engine mount, as the vessel begins to roll and plunge towards the planets surface.
Commander Toras: “Engineering, what was that?”
Tech Krezky: “It appears whatever caused the malfunction in the jump drive also blew out the starboard hybrid engine, sir.”
Commander Toras: “Helm, estimated time until impact?”
Lieutenant Keren: “ 42 minutes, 53 seconds, sir. We cannot maintain enough power to stop our descent altogether, but with the remaining Repulsors, we can slow it enough that the impact should not be fatal.”
Commander Toras: “Very well, helm.”
The craft beings its descent towards the unknown planet’s atmosphere, the crew’s minds on their survival, and nothing else.

-=Guardian Post 75, High Orbit over the planet Nominor

It was the start of yet another day on "Guardian Post Seventy-Five," another day with a promise of - boredom. Being suspended in high-orbit over a world populated by crazy technophobic tree-hugger ascetic monks was bound to be boring. This wasn't what Private Nicholas Endarin had been bargaining for when he signed up for the Civil Defense Network - he had been angling for patrols close to his home, Ondataru. Instead he'd been shipped into the Imperial Core to sit in a little tin-can sensor station pouring over sensor readouts and communications feeds, because who knows - some alien race might come after the bloody trees here! Yet here he was - stooped over the feeds, which were telling him the same thing they had since he started this dead-end job - all clear. Nicholas was idly considering hijacking the escape shuttle and becoming a pirate somewhere when suddenly, the feeds changed - drastically. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. No, it was clearly there - something was breaking FTL travel right on top of the planet! Nicholas's mind scrambled - it had been so long since his training for the post he had almost forgot what to do when this sort of thing happened. Oh yeah - call the nearest naval vessel for unidentified bogies breaking FTL travel. Luckily, this was the home system, so fully a third of the navy was around at any time. However, the number on active duty or patrol might be small... Nicholas punched up a readout of nearby vessels - the nearest was A.N.S.S. Kelt, a Neodämmerung class battleship. He would hail them.

"A.N.S.S. Kelt, this is Guardian Station 75, over Nominor. We have an unidentified craft that just came out of a jump or something right on top of us..." he glanced over the feed, and realized with horror that it was dropping toward the planet... rather fast... "it is currently dropping toward the planet at high velocity."

There was silence on the other end for a moment, then a reply,

"Guardian Station 75, we have confirmed your report and will be over there in a few minutes. Please notify us if there is any change in the vessel's state."

"Yes sir," replied Nicholas. "75 out." Nicholas went over to one of the small view screens and put in the coordinates of the unidentified vessel. A moment later it appeared on the screen, and he looked it over. It was definitely like no known ship he had ever seen - he had been briefed and rebriefed on everything from Tsurani Dragonships to Facehuggerian corvettes, yet this bore no resemblance to any of them. It also looked in a bad way - he could see blast scoring along one of the sides, but not as if it was from something shooting it, but rather as if it had blown up from the inside out. He remembered, then, that the next part of the protocol was to hail the bogey and try to determine its origins and purpose. He set it up for a short range and all-frequency signal, and began:

"Unidentified vessel, please state your point of origin."

However, he wasn't sure how to continue - this vessel hardly looked like a warship, at least nothing ominous was visible. Considering the way shrapnel was billowing out the one side, and its uncontrolled descent, it was definitely not in a threatening position. Nicholas decided to just leave it at that and await a response.

The prototype’s sensors detected a large vessel on the fringes of their scanner range, and the crew reacted immediately.
Commander Toras: “Comms, broadcast transmission to the vessel.”
Lieutenant Terrik: “Aye sir, channel open.”
Commander Toras: “Unidentified vessel, this is the BXV Enterprise, we require immediate assistance, repeat, this is the BXV Enterprise, mayday mayday, we require assistance!”

((OOC: very panicked, unintelligible gibberish, to a non-Blademasterian ear))

Lieutenant Terrik: “Sir, I am detecting a transmission from the vessel. I am unable to interpret the language sir, but from the look of that ship she could vaporize us in a flash, I suspect they are only curious.”
Commander Toras: “Helm, do we have control over the engines or Repulsors?”
Ensign Kalov: “No sir, but the engineers are attempting to restore control.”
Commander Toras: “Very well, attempt to use the maneuvering thrusters to slow our rate of descent, perhaps we can convince these aliens to rescue us.”
Ensign Kalov: “Aye sir.”
Thrusters mounted around the bow of the ship flare to life, expelling plasma into space in a futile attempt to slow the vessel. Slowly, the ship’s forward section begins to rise, but her descent towards the planet’s surface remains constant.
Ensign Kalov: “Sir, I estimate 13 minutes until we begin to enter the atmosphere. At that point its doubtful the ship will be able to arrest our descent.”
Commander Toras: “Very well, comms, replay that message every 43 seconds, and blink the navigation lights, anything to get their attention!”
Lieutenant Terrik: “Yes sir.”
The small ship’s blue navigation lights begin to blink, followed by her bright white landing lights. The vessel still continues her descent towards the unidentified planet. Deep inside the bowels of the ship, the two engineers work feverishly to restore control of the repulsors to the helm control.
Tech Krezky: “Its hopeless, the circuits are fried, and the backups as well.”
Tech Kyutos: “What if we use the maneuvering circuits to bypass the damaged wiring?”
Tech Krezky: “Then we’d lose maneuvering control, and the repulsor controls would blow the maneuvering circuits out as well.”
Tech Kyutos: “Its worth a try at least, we can’t make things any worse.”
Seconds later, the ship’s maneuvering thrusters go out, and her descent slows for a few seconds, long enough for the techs to celebrate before another explosion rocks the ship. The aft section now sports a gaping hole, and the vessel’s nose begins to angle back towards the planet.

-=Guardian Station 75

Nicholas continued to monitor the vessel as it inexorably slid toward the surface of Nominor. They definitely weren't trying to land there, at any rate. Suddenly the comm began to beep - incoming transmission! Nicholas rushed over and jabbed at the panel. Yet, all that was coming through was some strang gibberish - a language he had never heard. He cursed, as the station had no translator, not even an AI to do the legwork. He forwarded the message to the Kelt as fast as he could and turned his attention back to the unidentified ship. Lights were going off all over the vessel now, for some reason. The ship suddenly slowed, then a huge explosion erupted out the aft end, obscuring it from view. Nicholas panicked, and immediately hailed the Kelt.

"A.N.S.S. Kelt, this is Guardian Station 75, another section of the unidentified vessel has exploded, their descent will soon be uncontrolla..." he was uninterrupted as a voice yelled from the other end,

"75, this is the Kelt, we are right on top of you."

Nicholas looked out the station windows and watched as the massive battleship passed uncomfortably close to the station. The station groaned and tilted ever so slightly toward it as it passed; it had astonishing speed for something so large.


-=A.N.S.S. Kelt

The Kelt slowed as it neared the plummeting vessel. All eyes on the bridge were on the crippled ship as it dropped toward the massive green expanse that was Nominor.

"Get the tractor beams online now! We don't have much time until it augers in below!" shouted the captain.

All five tractor beams activated, and were locked on to the plummeting vessel... whether or not it would stop it remained to be seen.