Nerbstha
11-11-2006, 08:55
OOC: I just wanted to say thank you, for all the help people have given me in a previous thread. I hope I can RP FT well enough to keep it going.
IC:
A gleam in the eyes of the Universe
The last jump to a fabled world. An eden at the edge of known space. The only pillar of hope for a once thriving civilization, that no only survives in the millions, frozen in suspension, in vast bays of 22 surviving colony ships. The fleet started out with over one-hundred, however, a hundred and fifty years of continuous operation in hyper-space, with only one stop every twenty years to replenish the skeleton crews that keep the ships operating. Lifers, they called them. They had the dubious honor of being brought out of suspension during the voyage, and perform their duties. The last generation of the Lifers inhereted derelict ships. Every stopping point in the long journey revealed less and less ships. Presumably suffering one fatal malfunction or other. Millions of lives lost in space, without even knowing it.
22 points in space suddenly filled with bright blue lights, shattering this quiet sector of space. When the light subsided, there remained hulking pieces of space junk. The sector lit up with communications and short to long range sensor echoes. Tiny probes jetisoned from the vessels, each one on a course for the lush green planet that was like a big god from so many tales. This was the altar upon which their great sacrifice would be etified, their civilziation reborn.
The ships maneuvered as best they could in a close formation. On their starboard and port sides, collapsable tubes reeled outwards, and like a giant jigzaw puzzle, they fitted together. Ship by ship, a skeleton work of tubes spanned the distance. It took a full week for the grand scheme to come together, a giant spacestation was created. Complete with docking stations for the bohemoth vessels that would transport temporary structures, building equipment, and personnel to the surface. The awakening would begin soon. Little by little, people would be taken out of suspension, as living quarters and food supplies allowed it. It would take a year or so for all of the 7,290,283 sleepers to be awoken and allowed to return to the population. Even now, only 10,000 people were awake. Key members of the council, top security forces, needed construction crews, medical personnel, scientists, etc.
The only ship that didn't join was the An Boine, the worst off of the fleet. It had taken them two days after the jump to recover their communications databanks. Their connection tubes were jammed, and the machinery dedicated to opening the ship bay doors were mistakenly taken off line to ease the strain of an already taxed shipdrive.
"An Boine...An Boine...this is Homestar colony station...respond with status."
Attempts to hail the ship had been going on for the last half hour, before finally recieving a reply.
"Homestar, this is the An Boine's Captain, Unth Ka'taar...communications array continually failing. The drive is at thirty-one percent effeciency. Cutting off power to all nonessential equipment and machinery..."
Of course, he didn't mention the fact that they were slipping closer and closer to the planet, Homestar no doubt already knew of it. Terminal orbit was certainly in sight. Ka'taar's engineers were working desperately to reroute power directly into the drives, in an attempt to muster just enough to take it to a safer distance. Of course, even if it succeeded, rescue efforts would need to be preformed. After such a maneuver, the power reserves would be spent. The First Fathers didn't think much of redundancy.
Lifesigns
It had been a few days since probes were sent to various points on the planet, scientists rushed to get results from the data that was recieved. Was there water? Plenty of it. Fuana? More than you could weedeat. There were even signs of beasts, though that was just a scant rumor at the moment. The first group of landing craft had just entered the atmosphere. Six in all, they were dispersed to several points, to decide the best placement of the first settlement. Each group had four scientists, geologist, herbologist, as well as a few others. Cartographers, medics, as well as a full squad of soldiers for security.
Echo group had touched down near the equator of the planet. Its engines whined as they slowly shut down. White vapor spewed from the vents surrounding the baydoor as it pressurized and released, crashing through branches and breaking sapplings in half, lowering down to serve as a ramp. The first out were the soldiers, each crouched, their plasma rifles always pointing where they looked, they fluidly secured a small area outside the ship, each fireteam dedicated to either side of the ship. They were almost out of line of sight of eachother, the forest was so thick and sticky. The young soldiers tried hard to hide their eagerness, it was easy to do so, the top half of their faces was the only part of their body visible, and even it was obscured by the smoked helmet facepiece.
"Bravo, hold position," Staff Sergeant Lithre ordered through the squad level comm. channel.
His voice was stern, somewhat altered by the voicemitter on his helmet. It was strange. He had been awaken several days after the fleet had arrived. It was like waking after a bad dream. He had so many dreams while in hibernation, almost a life inside his head. He even had a wife, two children. He lived in a flat that he had always promised he would rent. When he got through with his Military contract. He was born right after the world started to fall apart. Pollution had choked the atmosphere. Famine had tore through crops. The manufactured disease that took out almost half the population. The construction of the ships that saved his life had even began two generations before he was even born. He was one of the lucky ones, so they said. He was ony of the millions chosen to carry on civilization, even while their homeworld was flickering away. He left almost everyone he knew.
Shari, he thought of the woman of his dreams. Long black hair, slightly curled at the tips. She was slender, pert, young. A few years younger than himself, he imagined. Their two kids looked almost identical to her.
"Sergeant Lithre," a weaker voice spat over the comm., "we're ready to set up our instruments, with your help." It was one of the scientist. He studied something that involved too many sylibles for Lithre to care about. Hell, he was still fighting off the grogginess from waking up.
"All right. Alpha team, help them out with the unloading and setting up of whatever they have. Bravo team, roving guard around the perimeter, maintain your battlebuddy."
A landclearing vehicle roared to life inside the vessel's bay, slowly creepking out into the inky, humid forest, piloted by one of the construction workers. The next few hours of being bossed around by some pencil necked nerd would be unbareable, Lithre reckoned. At least the atmosphere was breatheable.
Back at Homestar
All the modules (that's what the ships were called now, the station being named after the central vessel) were a flury of activity. The scientific modules were at work with the findings being recovered from the base camps, the construction and warehouse modules were preparing to ship more equipment downrange. It had been determined that site four would be the new home for several thousand settlers. It was a thick, temperate forest, it would take some months to clear enough acreage to lay a foundation for the first city, but it had the best hopes of sustaining a large population with such quick preperation. Site two would be next, as it was perched high in the mountains. Perhaps it would be the first spaceport, as it was at the highest evelation on the whole planet. It would be needed for the development of even larger settlements. Plans for a mining operation on the planet's single moon was already underway.
Nihm Oort was the King of the homeworld, but he was lost with one of the many errant vessels no doubt exploded in the depths of space somewhere between here and the homeworld. Now, Liapold Lih Oort was one of twelve heirs to the thrown, the only one who survived the journey. The others were lost like his father, or, conveniently, their cryotubes somehow went offline. Along with a few others who would have proposed a threat to Liapold. He was ruthless, but he knew what was best for his people, in his eyes at least. Now he sat in the bridge of the Homestar, which had been converted into the Council Chamber, known as the Great Forum. He had the center chair, while the thirty council members sat at a long, black table with a mirror finish. It wrapped almost all the way around the new King's position, but the Councilmen always sat at least in range of his peripheral view. He was far too paranoid to have anyone at his back.
The curly blonde haired, fresh faced young man, far too young to be a King, everyone had said, especially during such dire times. The Council was the true voice, and Liapold knew it. They were the ones who served his Father, and remained loyal to his word. Something that made Liapold even more nervous, as rumors spread of his illegitimacy.
"We need an answer, King Oort..."
"Uh...hm." The young King shook himself from his daydream, as he stared out from the large viewport, which gave an unabstructed view of the new planet.
"...about how many we should wake...and how soon," the thirteenth Councilmen, Ryth Mintre spoke plainly, obviously impetient at the King's abscent mindedness. Nihm would never be so complacant.
"Oh...yeah. Um...I think we should bring as many of our people as we can o the surface, as soon as possible," he said, as if just to give an answer. Any answer.
"What a dumbass..." said one soldier to the next, as they posted gaurd outside the King's chamber. They stood at parade rest, ceremonial halberds slanted forth, their golden blades gleamed with hues of blues and greens in the light.
"I know, right? Did you hear his explanation for not helping out the An Boine?" The other gaurd replied, stiff lipped, as to not give away their idle conversation. "Oh, but surely, the council can think of better things to worry themselves with. They should be able to fix the problem themselves And besides, we can't take on that many individuals without their own vessel...bluh, blugh."
Sure, they were Honor Gaurd, the most loyal to the royal family, but they were the ones that knew the most truth of the matter of illigitimacy. They knew of Liapold's true family line. There were rumors of hope, however. Some of the boarding records of the ships had been degraded and lost, and there was no central record of who all was truly taken on the vessels. All were important, yes, but there were rumors that there was at least one other heir left alive. The true heir of the thrown. The rumors were struck down officially, but it made the King nervous enough to make sure that everyone matching the descriptions of his family, were to be pulled from the cryochambers and questioned. The Honor Gaurd itself was charged with that responsibility.
The Gaurd to the right, whose name was Oritle, stiffened his lip, hiding his greif quite well. "Three-hundred and fifty thousand people...and I think we've lost them. I'm lucky that my family was brought on this ship."
"Mine were left behind..."
An Boine
An explosion tore through engineer deck 4, support beams bent, bulkheads sheared apart. The poor souls that were trying to direct power from one section to another, manually, had somehow triggered an explosion. The resulting chain reaction ripped through the corridor wall, as if pulling a string from under ground. The automatic emergency operation of the blast doors had been disabled in the name of minimizing power output, and no one had the time to close them. They either parished or fled into safe rooms that could be closed. Irtyh Poan was an engineer working in cryogenic bay 31, home to 50,000 souls. Her primary task was simply keeping them alive, watching their nutrient intake, ensuring that the power hungry bastards from up top didn't try to unhook anything that would kill her little garden, as she called it. She was young when she was awaken for her term, the historic last ten years. Now she was 29, fairly athletic for someone who spent years wandering the bowels of a colony ship. She was just finishing up the day's last "meal", a simple change hike of nutrient intake for the whole batch of people, when alarms began sounding. Her heart jumped, she then felt the shaking. Her coffee mug trembled and shook across the metal table of her station, shattering on the grated floor.
"Fire on E-deck Four! Explosive! All blast doors! Close'em!" squaked over the intercom.
She bolted immediately from her station, bounding down a short distance from it, between rows and rows of thousands of souls she had almost knew by name. The whole cavernous chamber seemed to jolt out of place beneath her feet. The explosion was huge, but it hadn't yet reached her garden, she imagined. She reached the corridor in question. Engineer deck 4. She could feel the hot blast of air rushing down the way, it was coming quick. The manual emergency switch was at the other side of the blast doors. She had a tough decision. Cut and run, save herself, or save many. Her family, as she never had one of her own. A shiver of mortal fear ran through her, quickly, she dashed into the corridor, she cried aloud as she looked back into her garden, into the frosted viewports of one of her own. A small boy, from the looks of it. The heat was now scorching, her eyed burned. Her last effort was pulling the switch, the blast doors slammed shut, a great bang echoed through the chamber, as the doors strained to hold back the pressure.
"Son of a bitch!" Ka'taar screamed out, his face red, seat stained his uniform. He knew what had just happened doomed them. The Captain turned to his consort, all waiting for their orders, fearing the worst. "Save as many as you can. Order as many personnel as possible into evac pods. Fire up the transports even...there's no hope for us now."
"Yes, Captain...but...what of those in hybernation?"
"They are the lucky ones..."
It only took two hours for most of the crew to find escape pods and flee unharmed. Cargo shuttles were filled shoulder to shoulder. Only those that were trapped in the explosion, or those that refused to leave, including Captain Ka'taar, stayed behind. Six hours later, the An Boine, along with nearly three hundred and fifty thousand souls, fell not into the planet's atmosphere, but instead, collided with the moon's surface. The explosion was furious, leaving a deep, long scathe, blackened and charred.
IC:
A gleam in the eyes of the Universe
The last jump to a fabled world. An eden at the edge of known space. The only pillar of hope for a once thriving civilization, that no only survives in the millions, frozen in suspension, in vast bays of 22 surviving colony ships. The fleet started out with over one-hundred, however, a hundred and fifty years of continuous operation in hyper-space, with only one stop every twenty years to replenish the skeleton crews that keep the ships operating. Lifers, they called them. They had the dubious honor of being brought out of suspension during the voyage, and perform their duties. The last generation of the Lifers inhereted derelict ships. Every stopping point in the long journey revealed less and less ships. Presumably suffering one fatal malfunction or other. Millions of lives lost in space, without even knowing it.
22 points in space suddenly filled with bright blue lights, shattering this quiet sector of space. When the light subsided, there remained hulking pieces of space junk. The sector lit up with communications and short to long range sensor echoes. Tiny probes jetisoned from the vessels, each one on a course for the lush green planet that was like a big god from so many tales. This was the altar upon which their great sacrifice would be etified, their civilziation reborn.
The ships maneuvered as best they could in a close formation. On their starboard and port sides, collapsable tubes reeled outwards, and like a giant jigzaw puzzle, they fitted together. Ship by ship, a skeleton work of tubes spanned the distance. It took a full week for the grand scheme to come together, a giant spacestation was created. Complete with docking stations for the bohemoth vessels that would transport temporary structures, building equipment, and personnel to the surface. The awakening would begin soon. Little by little, people would be taken out of suspension, as living quarters and food supplies allowed it. It would take a year or so for all of the 7,290,283 sleepers to be awoken and allowed to return to the population. Even now, only 10,000 people were awake. Key members of the council, top security forces, needed construction crews, medical personnel, scientists, etc.
The only ship that didn't join was the An Boine, the worst off of the fleet. It had taken them two days after the jump to recover their communications databanks. Their connection tubes were jammed, and the machinery dedicated to opening the ship bay doors were mistakenly taken off line to ease the strain of an already taxed shipdrive.
"An Boine...An Boine...this is Homestar colony station...respond with status."
Attempts to hail the ship had been going on for the last half hour, before finally recieving a reply.
"Homestar, this is the An Boine's Captain, Unth Ka'taar...communications array continually failing. The drive is at thirty-one percent effeciency. Cutting off power to all nonessential equipment and machinery..."
Of course, he didn't mention the fact that they were slipping closer and closer to the planet, Homestar no doubt already knew of it. Terminal orbit was certainly in sight. Ka'taar's engineers were working desperately to reroute power directly into the drives, in an attempt to muster just enough to take it to a safer distance. Of course, even if it succeeded, rescue efforts would need to be preformed. After such a maneuver, the power reserves would be spent. The First Fathers didn't think much of redundancy.
Lifesigns
It had been a few days since probes were sent to various points on the planet, scientists rushed to get results from the data that was recieved. Was there water? Plenty of it. Fuana? More than you could weedeat. There were even signs of beasts, though that was just a scant rumor at the moment. The first group of landing craft had just entered the atmosphere. Six in all, they were dispersed to several points, to decide the best placement of the first settlement. Each group had four scientists, geologist, herbologist, as well as a few others. Cartographers, medics, as well as a full squad of soldiers for security.
Echo group had touched down near the equator of the planet. Its engines whined as they slowly shut down. White vapor spewed from the vents surrounding the baydoor as it pressurized and released, crashing through branches and breaking sapplings in half, lowering down to serve as a ramp. The first out were the soldiers, each crouched, their plasma rifles always pointing where they looked, they fluidly secured a small area outside the ship, each fireteam dedicated to either side of the ship. They were almost out of line of sight of eachother, the forest was so thick and sticky. The young soldiers tried hard to hide their eagerness, it was easy to do so, the top half of their faces was the only part of their body visible, and even it was obscured by the smoked helmet facepiece.
"Bravo, hold position," Staff Sergeant Lithre ordered through the squad level comm. channel.
His voice was stern, somewhat altered by the voicemitter on his helmet. It was strange. He had been awaken several days after the fleet had arrived. It was like waking after a bad dream. He had so many dreams while in hibernation, almost a life inside his head. He even had a wife, two children. He lived in a flat that he had always promised he would rent. When he got through with his Military contract. He was born right after the world started to fall apart. Pollution had choked the atmosphere. Famine had tore through crops. The manufactured disease that took out almost half the population. The construction of the ships that saved his life had even began two generations before he was even born. He was one of the lucky ones, so they said. He was ony of the millions chosen to carry on civilization, even while their homeworld was flickering away. He left almost everyone he knew.
Shari, he thought of the woman of his dreams. Long black hair, slightly curled at the tips. She was slender, pert, young. A few years younger than himself, he imagined. Their two kids looked almost identical to her.
"Sergeant Lithre," a weaker voice spat over the comm., "we're ready to set up our instruments, with your help." It was one of the scientist. He studied something that involved too many sylibles for Lithre to care about. Hell, he was still fighting off the grogginess from waking up.
"All right. Alpha team, help them out with the unloading and setting up of whatever they have. Bravo team, roving guard around the perimeter, maintain your battlebuddy."
A landclearing vehicle roared to life inside the vessel's bay, slowly creepking out into the inky, humid forest, piloted by one of the construction workers. The next few hours of being bossed around by some pencil necked nerd would be unbareable, Lithre reckoned. At least the atmosphere was breatheable.
Back at Homestar
All the modules (that's what the ships were called now, the station being named after the central vessel) were a flury of activity. The scientific modules were at work with the findings being recovered from the base camps, the construction and warehouse modules were preparing to ship more equipment downrange. It had been determined that site four would be the new home for several thousand settlers. It was a thick, temperate forest, it would take some months to clear enough acreage to lay a foundation for the first city, but it had the best hopes of sustaining a large population with such quick preperation. Site two would be next, as it was perched high in the mountains. Perhaps it would be the first spaceport, as it was at the highest evelation on the whole planet. It would be needed for the development of even larger settlements. Plans for a mining operation on the planet's single moon was already underway.
Nihm Oort was the King of the homeworld, but he was lost with one of the many errant vessels no doubt exploded in the depths of space somewhere between here and the homeworld. Now, Liapold Lih Oort was one of twelve heirs to the thrown, the only one who survived the journey. The others were lost like his father, or, conveniently, their cryotubes somehow went offline. Along with a few others who would have proposed a threat to Liapold. He was ruthless, but he knew what was best for his people, in his eyes at least. Now he sat in the bridge of the Homestar, which had been converted into the Council Chamber, known as the Great Forum. He had the center chair, while the thirty council members sat at a long, black table with a mirror finish. It wrapped almost all the way around the new King's position, but the Councilmen always sat at least in range of his peripheral view. He was far too paranoid to have anyone at his back.
The curly blonde haired, fresh faced young man, far too young to be a King, everyone had said, especially during such dire times. The Council was the true voice, and Liapold knew it. They were the ones who served his Father, and remained loyal to his word. Something that made Liapold even more nervous, as rumors spread of his illegitimacy.
"We need an answer, King Oort..."
"Uh...hm." The young King shook himself from his daydream, as he stared out from the large viewport, which gave an unabstructed view of the new planet.
"...about how many we should wake...and how soon," the thirteenth Councilmen, Ryth Mintre spoke plainly, obviously impetient at the King's abscent mindedness. Nihm would never be so complacant.
"Oh...yeah. Um...I think we should bring as many of our people as we can o the surface, as soon as possible," he said, as if just to give an answer. Any answer.
"What a dumbass..." said one soldier to the next, as they posted gaurd outside the King's chamber. They stood at parade rest, ceremonial halberds slanted forth, their golden blades gleamed with hues of blues and greens in the light.
"I know, right? Did you hear his explanation for not helping out the An Boine?" The other gaurd replied, stiff lipped, as to not give away their idle conversation. "Oh, but surely, the council can think of better things to worry themselves with. They should be able to fix the problem themselves And besides, we can't take on that many individuals without their own vessel...bluh, blugh."
Sure, they were Honor Gaurd, the most loyal to the royal family, but they were the ones that knew the most truth of the matter of illigitimacy. They knew of Liapold's true family line. There were rumors of hope, however. Some of the boarding records of the ships had been degraded and lost, and there was no central record of who all was truly taken on the vessels. All were important, yes, but there were rumors that there was at least one other heir left alive. The true heir of the thrown. The rumors were struck down officially, but it made the King nervous enough to make sure that everyone matching the descriptions of his family, were to be pulled from the cryochambers and questioned. The Honor Gaurd itself was charged with that responsibility.
The Gaurd to the right, whose name was Oritle, stiffened his lip, hiding his greif quite well. "Three-hundred and fifty thousand people...and I think we've lost them. I'm lucky that my family was brought on this ship."
"Mine were left behind..."
An Boine
An explosion tore through engineer deck 4, support beams bent, bulkheads sheared apart. The poor souls that were trying to direct power from one section to another, manually, had somehow triggered an explosion. The resulting chain reaction ripped through the corridor wall, as if pulling a string from under ground. The automatic emergency operation of the blast doors had been disabled in the name of minimizing power output, and no one had the time to close them. They either parished or fled into safe rooms that could be closed. Irtyh Poan was an engineer working in cryogenic bay 31, home to 50,000 souls. Her primary task was simply keeping them alive, watching their nutrient intake, ensuring that the power hungry bastards from up top didn't try to unhook anything that would kill her little garden, as she called it. She was young when she was awaken for her term, the historic last ten years. Now she was 29, fairly athletic for someone who spent years wandering the bowels of a colony ship. She was just finishing up the day's last "meal", a simple change hike of nutrient intake for the whole batch of people, when alarms began sounding. Her heart jumped, she then felt the shaking. Her coffee mug trembled and shook across the metal table of her station, shattering on the grated floor.
"Fire on E-deck Four! Explosive! All blast doors! Close'em!" squaked over the intercom.
She bolted immediately from her station, bounding down a short distance from it, between rows and rows of thousands of souls she had almost knew by name. The whole cavernous chamber seemed to jolt out of place beneath her feet. The explosion was huge, but it hadn't yet reached her garden, she imagined. She reached the corridor in question. Engineer deck 4. She could feel the hot blast of air rushing down the way, it was coming quick. The manual emergency switch was at the other side of the blast doors. She had a tough decision. Cut and run, save herself, or save many. Her family, as she never had one of her own. A shiver of mortal fear ran through her, quickly, she dashed into the corridor, she cried aloud as she looked back into her garden, into the frosted viewports of one of her own. A small boy, from the looks of it. The heat was now scorching, her eyed burned. Her last effort was pulling the switch, the blast doors slammed shut, a great bang echoed through the chamber, as the doors strained to hold back the pressure.
"Son of a bitch!" Ka'taar screamed out, his face red, seat stained his uniform. He knew what had just happened doomed them. The Captain turned to his consort, all waiting for their orders, fearing the worst. "Save as many as you can. Order as many personnel as possible into evac pods. Fire up the transports even...there's no hope for us now."
"Yes, Captain...but...what of those in hybernation?"
"They are the lucky ones..."
It only took two hours for most of the crew to find escape pods and flee unharmed. Cargo shuttles were filled shoulder to shoulder. Only those that were trapped in the explosion, or those that refused to leave, including Captain Ka'taar, stayed behind. Six hours later, the An Boine, along with nearly three hundred and fifty thousand souls, fell not into the planet's atmosphere, but instead, collided with the moon's surface. The explosion was furious, leaving a deep, long scathe, blackened and charred.