NationStates Jolt Archive

The Experimental drive had been readied, and the ship drifted past the edges of the solar system; intent on testing this new method to navigate the stars; its sleek, gothic exterior betrayed the sheer mind-bogglign science of what lay within; the Gravity Drive; capable of folding space, and time, and achieving such vast distance in a day; yes...That was their goal.

Yet now; upon the cusp of their achievement they paused, drinking in the glory of their achievement, the barriers they would break; the theories they would upturn, what would the world think of this most immense achievement?

The drive was activated, and they thought no longer on this plane; indeed, it would be years before the vessel would be discovered, adrift, abandoned, seemingly derelict; and yet scans would reveal immense fluctuations in the life sign readings of the vessel.

Within, something waited, a secret waiting to be discovered, a mystery waiting to be unlocked...Who would dare?

OOC: The Consequence of watching Event Horizon; join at your leisure.

Sovereignty Listening Outpost: Tau-311

“Sir?”
“Yes, what is it?”

A young lieutenant one duty stared at her holo-monitor. With her eyes still on the screen, she said, “I think that you might want to take a look at this.”

The commander got up from his chair and walked over. He glanced at the screen, and then at the various other holo-displays on the console.

“What the hell?...”

An hour later…

A small scout vessel, the ES In’telan approached a vessel of an ancient design. Its smooth, dark hull glistened in the starlight. The vessel was slowly spinning around while the ship carefully moved into transporter range.

Onboard, a few small robotic creatures appeared in a flash of a rather dimmed light.

These were small S.O.A.T. mrk.II (OOC: A Resi Corp product.) units originally designed as extreme combat machines, now modified to serve an exploratory role.

They switched to Psi sense mode, and began to search around.

From a large room on the vessel, a group of pilots were controlling the actions of the droids remotely. The droids continued to move about while the pilots watched the dark view on their holo-monitors.

(OOC: Every Eshirian has a minor Psionic capability. You'll find that nearly everything we have is linked to this ability in some way. The Psi sensors of the droids are linked to each individual pilot, through which the pilot will utilize his own psi abilities. The sensor on the droid acts something like a conduit that increases the range of the pilots psionic senses to a small radius around each droid unit.

If the ship is anything like the one in the movie, then this mental link should provide some interesting opportunities for the dark force inside the ship...)

The ship was dead, quiet as a tomb; its interior a reflection of flickering light from nearby stars; occasionally lighting upon something that shimmered red; it appeared that a deep freeze had been initiated; and gravity had been powered down; for it seemed derelict, immensely empty, deserted...Yet it would shurely be a treasure for any who found it; save the sense of foreboding within the darkness of its hull.

Awaiting new life; the ship lay, dormant, and unresponsive to the probing efforts of the drones; save flickering shadows that seemed to move, confusing sensors...

In the Drone Control Room:

The drone pilots tried vainly to utilize the broad capabilities of the Psi sensors, hoping to use them to detect some kind of presence. Sometimes, there would be a strong reading, and then it would vanish, just to appear somewhere else.
The row of pilots each sat in a chair, with only some red lights, and the glow of the holo-monitors illuminating their consoles. Each also had a headset and a visor that covered most of their head. (Think old VR equipment.)

“This is starting to creep me out…” spoke one of them quietly.

The Psi sensors also allowed the pilots to feel as if they were really there, as the sensors linked into their mind. The cold, and dark setting could be felt by the operators.

An officer sat behind them, in his own console, monitoring their read outs, and sensor data. He also saw the random spikes in sensor activity, which appeared randomly. Through the cameras of the drones routed to his holo-monitors, he noticed how the shadows seemed almost…alive…

“Alright, this isn’t going anywhere.” He announced. “Pull back to the landing pod, and retrieve the drones. Standard safety checks on those drones.”

One by one the pilots announced.
“3-A, pulling out.”
“4-A, pulling out.”
“6-B, pulling out…”

The next few hours:

Inside another room, the officer who had monitored the operation was speaking to the ship’s captain, Aun’en
“Sir, there’s nothing on that thing. It’s dead, sensors couldn’t pick up anything.”
“If there’s one thing being a captain out here has taught me, it’s that sensors aren’t always reliable.”
“Sir, you understand that they were our own psi sensors.”
“Yes, I know, allowing the pilot to actually be there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ve been on exploratory missions for years now, you know the good stuff never happens until a real person walks on board, and not just some drones.”
“Yes, that always seems to happen…”

Aun looked at the officer for a moment, studying his expression.

“Send in a security team instead of the usual scientists, if you’re aren’t comfortable about it.”
“Yes sir.”

Half an hour later:

A smaller pod began to approach the derelict vessel.

Over a radio, a voice announced, “Sierra Tango-3-1-2, approaching target.”
The small vessel maneuvered around, getting a lock on the docking clamps.

“Initiating dock.”

Inside the command center aboard the In’telan, the captain and the command crew listened to the broadcasts.

“Alright, docking complete, link secure.”
After some noise, “Tunnel pressurized, Haz suits ready, arms, secure. Preparing to board target.”

Inside the tunnel, a small group of ES Marines made their way towards the hatch of the ghost ship.

The Hatch was ancient, a spiralling doorway to the inner workings of the ship; the tunnel closed about it, pressurising, letting air flow towards it for the first time in so long. The door, silently, slowly activated, sensing the docking procedure and relishing it; responding by opening the door.

A rush of stale dead air poured forth from the ship; the air of centuries of cold slumber, the oxygen near depleted, and the corridors too long unused; this was the first time that any had set foot upon it since its return, from void, from slumber; and now, here, there came these beings; these psychic ones, to plumb its secrets.

Somewhere in the deep dark, something stirred, something awoke...
It was time...

(OOC: Keep in mind that their Psi ability is quite minor, as their particular training didn’t really focus on it, or else they wouldn’t even be trying to get on board with what’s in there.)

The ES Marines slowly made their way towards the open hatch, the air still rushing in to the nearly completely depressurized interior. The Atmospheric Stabilizers struggling to maintain the pressure inside the tunnel.

“Keep formation, steady now.” Ordered the Commander of the group.

Even with their dull senses, they could feel that something was wrong. The whole ship just didn’t feel right, and neither did the cold, dark setting onboard.
Each soldier was in a regular body armor, but also had a sort of protective force field, only useful for maintaining a normal pressure and not really for weapons fire.

The medic looked over his sensors. “Bio checks read out. Clear.”

Each Marine slowly powered down their shields.

“ST-312, onboard target.” announced the Cmdr.

While the dark force began to come to life, each of the Marines began to feel more and more uneasy about what they had just walked into. For now, their training had already allowed them to ignore it. They had been in far worse situations than a mere bad feeling in a scary room. What was to come however, none of them would never have expected.

“Group in twos, fan out, search the area. Release your drones. (We’ve just got robots every where.)”

The Marines followed their orders, broke up, and released a small robot that hovered near them. They slowly made their way towards each door in the room.

(OOC: I'm surprised that no one else has jumped onboard this. I think it's something new.)

OOC: Ok, first I'm gonna need a bit of background; secrets, weaknesses, that sort of thing ;)

OOC: Ok, first I'm gonna need a bit of background; secrets, weaknesses, that sort of thing ;)

(OOC: Of the Marines? As in, a bit of history of the Marines or each individual soldier?)

OOC: Individuals of course; then I get to head fuck ;)

OOC: Individuals of course; then I get to head fuck ;)

(OOC: Thought so.

Alright, here goes:

Commander Ran'tel
Age: 45
Sex: Male
Height: 5' 8"
Body type: Strong, muscular build, intimidating presence.
Married? Yes
Children: 2, a boy, and a girl.

Background: Commander Ran'tel joined the Eshirian Marine Corp at the age of 17. Like most of his fellow recruits, his father was also in the service. In his childhood, at the age of 3, his mother had left for another man, and disapeared, so he grew up with a deisre to learn more about her all his life. His father was KIA when he was 16, a day before his birthday, at which point it was his decision to sign up. At the age of 25, he met his wife, En'shin, a civilian doctor. They married two years later, and had two children, Kyian, and Lan'teir, (Kyian's the girl.) He has lived most of his life fighting one war or another, which has his family always worried about his well being. He feels a strong sense of duty and loyalty to his country, and especially his family. There have been rumors of hom having an affair with another officer in the Corp, but these claims have had no proof, and are mostly perpetuated through people known to be his enemies.

Lieutenant Semora
Age: 27
Sex: Female
Height: 5’ 7”
Body type: Let’s just say she looks pretty damn good…
Married? No
Children: ^

Background: Lieutenant Semora joined the ES Marine Corp at the age of 18. Neither of her parents were enlisted. One could say that she had a very good childhood, with no serious events, or anything that would haunt her in any way. However… At age 20, in a large terrorist attack in her home city, both of her parents were killed, just when she was considering dropping out of the service. The thought of getting revenge on those responsible has been on her mind ever since. She saw the military, which was mostly involved in counter-terrorism at the time, as a way to get that revenge. Although, by strange twists of fate, she was never assigned to any CT unit, and she never got her revenge. She remained in the service because she then had no where else to go.


(I'll be having dinner soon, I'll get the rest of them up later today, or tomorrow.)

OOC: If you don't want me to join in, tell me and I'll delete this.

IC:
A new contact appeared on the sensors. The Mind increased the range of the powerful scanners and focused them on the vessel. It seemed dead, but there were some strange readings coming from it.

It flashed a message to the active duty crew members through one of the avatars, and broke off from its studies of the local volume. The INV Dark Star, an explorer corvette of the Indoan Navy, gently accelerated towards the new ship in a wide curve, which would place the corvette on the same plane as the apparently derelict ship, at what the Mind thought was a safe distance.

As the Dark Star approached the derelict, the sensors picked up the location of the Kyangian(?) outpost, as well as registering the presence of the pod attached to the hull of the derelict.

~ Maybe I should try and contact the vessel, or that outpost before I do anything. No, if they want to talk, they can contact me. I'll just float here and get a team ready to board the derelict. There's something odd about that ship, mused the Mind.

It would normally be content to examine the vessel from here with its sensors, and maybe use a couple of drones to take a closer view, but the confusing nature of the readings coming from the ship convinced the Mind to take a much closer look.

The Mind asked the crew for some volunteers to examine an unknown vessel, it wanted a pilot for the shuttle and a group of four from its on board troop contingent, one with medical training. It prepared the shuttle as the volunteers got ready for the trip, drawing equipment from the stores. After brief consideration, the Mind decided to put an avatar on the team as well, especially since regulations prohibited the shuttle from flying without two flight crew.

The Gallifreyan TARDIS class temporal shuttle pilot observed the timelines, watching for some event of significance. And he saw one. The testing of a new drive resulting in horrific consequences. He grinned, adjusted some controls, and activated the time drive.

He arrived approximately five minutes after the other ships had picked up the craft and already arrived. The pilot looked at his scanners, and saw that the area was much more active than he had hoped it would be. He set the cloaking system of the ship to make it appear to be a large battlecruiser, and moved to dock with the derelict. he was about half an hour away from the derelict at top speed, and the pilot knew he could expect something horrible, or daemonic, given the reputation that the Chronosian imperium had gained in the past centuries, and the millenia to come.

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