NationStates Jolt Archive

"So how was the meeting,"

Seli Grostin and Nisa Olgander (http://randomc.animeblogger.net:8000/image/Nogizaka%20Haruka%20no%20Himitsu/Nogizaka%20Haruka%20no%20Himitsu%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2045.jpg) were sitting in the mess hall once again. Seli was enjoying the fine Iolian cuisine that Nisa had produced for him asking for seconds every time he finished. Even though he was almost full, he enjoyed his time with Nisa as it seems hes always out on some sort of mission. It shows on Nisa's face sometimes the worry that she has for his well being, ever since that fateful day when he crash landed in her farm, after doing an suborbital recon mission of her world. "Oh it was the usual diplomatic meeting, although they had a rather beautiful recreation room, like being inside a large open field."

"Oh, I wish I could have been there."

"Yeah I did too, but it was too dangerous for you.'

"I could hold my own,"

"I bet you could, but I can't risk putting you in danger,"

"Seli for all this time you told me not to worry about you, maybe you should heed your own advice."

"Well maybe you're right."

Captain James Lingun walked into the mess hall, looking quite exhausted. After a quick yawn and skimming through the not very crowded room, he spotted Seli and Nisa, and made his way towards them. Seli cringed as he began to come near Nisa. "May I take a seat, Miss Olgander."

"Oh! Yes James please do. Would you like some?" she asked offering him a serving.

"Well there goes our alone time," Seli mumbled.

"What was that Sergeant?"

"Oh nothing! Just almost full."

"Ah, I couldn't get any sleep, I guess I was smelling Miss Olgander's fine cooking."

Nisa blushed at the comment, while Seli was of another red, with a bit of jealousy showing. Suddenly another figure walked into the room, as Seli and Nisa watched, Lingun slowly turned around. It was Commander Silva Jilneas, and she looked a little annoyed with Lingun right now. "Fraternizing with civilians while on duty is not a good example for the crew sir."

"I wasn't fraternizing, I am simply enjoying this fine cooking. If only you coul-"

"I could what sir?!"

"Um nothing," his eyes turning both ways, to see if he was in the clear, for which he was sadly mistaken.

"Yeah right. Well I'm heading off to my quarters,"

Lingun quickly got up and rushed after Jilneas. Nisa and Seli looked at each other, "You don't think they're, well you know?"

They simultaneously said, "Na!"

Meanwhile in the Jilnea's quarters, Lingun was kissing her intensely, pausing for a second he said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked.

"For that com-"

"Just, just don't remind me." she retorted.

Suddenly his commlink started to ring. They both grunted heavily as Lingun fumbled with it to see that he was needed on the bridge. Something definitely had come up.

"I'll see you there," Silva said giving James one last kiss.

A few moments later, Torich made it to the bridge. Upon entering the Tactical Display area, or TacDis, his console began to flood with information. It was a distress call. "Do you have the origin?"

"Yes sir, a couple light seconds away from our current position."

Jilneas walked onto the bridge and stood near the TacDis, ready to relay orders. "Course of action sir?" she asked.

"All hands Blue Alert, commence microjump to the area."

"Yes sir," someone from navigations acknowledged.

A few moments later the Belldandy dropped out of hyperspace and found a something of concern. A freighter was drifting slowly, its engines disabled, its hull badly beaten that it was about to vent atmosphere. Lingun looked through the TacDis as scans began to feed it in real time. "There's the culprit," he pointed out causing the TacDis to zoom in on the object. "Shields up!"

"Yes sir."

"This is the Ganoxian Alliance Destroyer Belldandy, stand down your attack on that vessel." Lingun keyed up.

The marauding ship ignored the message and continued another attack run. It began firing its autocannons at the disabled ship, when suddenly it was struck twice by something. That was from the two medium rail guns on the Belldandy which was about to send more at the marauder.

"Those are warning shots. You are to leave this area or face termination, you have thirty seconds to comply."

Still ignoring the message the marauder then came at the Belldandy, who began to fire another salvo at the attacker. The first shell hit the bulk of the ship as it came racing towards them autocannons firing. The temporal shields began to eat up the incoming fire as the Belldandy fired off two more salvos. Finally the marauder took the message and limped off into hyperspace. Without hesitation Lingun keyed up once again, opening communications with the damaged freighter.

"This is the Ganoxian Alliance Destroyer Belldandy, Captain James Lingun speaking. We have picked up your distress call and ready to provide assistance."

OOC: So anyone want to claim this freighter?

"There not responding sir." Jilneas reported from the Intel bay

"Any life signs on board," Lingun was concerned that he maybe too late.

"Yes sir, some faint ones, but they're still alive. Life support seems to be barely operational but still can support their crew."

"Alright, prepare a rescue party. Tell Commander Frenck that hes coming along too."

"Yes sir. I assume you're going as well," she sighed.

"Why of course," he smirked.

A few moments later the shuttle carrying the rescue party which included Commander Frenck and his engineers, First Squad, which is made up of Jim Torrison, Sarah Halenska, Lewis Lewis, and Seli Grostin, along with Sergeant Major Polis and some grunts and of course Captain Lingun himself, all of them in their armor suits. After some engineers counterbalanced the rotation of the ship, the shuttle then docked with the freighter, cutting through the hull as some obvious access hatches were seriously warped and deformed from hull damage. Even though it was previously stated Frenck conducted one last test of the atmosphere before opening the airlock. He confirmed that the air was breathable and could sustain them, but needed to investigate the support systems further before finishing that diagnostic.

"Alright fan out, search this entire ship for survivors and bring them back to the shuttle. We don't know the integrity of the hull and how long it will last."

"Yes sir," they said sporadically.

OOC: I'll claim, take this as my placeholder while I write.

The freighter's corridors were silent, a few already punctured and vented, most not; there were no signs of struggle or violence, no hails or communications or anything that would indicate that there had been living beings on the ship. The crew quarters were spare, obviously occupied at one point, but currently empty; most of the ship's systems were down, except for sporadic life support and a few powered bulkheads, so if one wanted to access the ship's logs they'd have to head to the bridge and hope that one of the main consoles was still online.

----------

The first interesting things a searcher might find elsewhere on the ship were the cargo holds, or rather, their contents: crates upon crates of ammunition, weaponry, and explosives cram-packed into . There was enough military grade materiél in that freighter to level a few dozen square miles of anything; the kicker was that if the Ganoxans knew who that freighter belonged to, they'd appreciate just how comparatively small a payload it was carrying.

The second, far more interesting thing a nosy Ganoxan might notice was that all of this was wired to blow.

One might posit that the discoverers of such a situation might be so agitated by the sudden possibility of their imminent spontaneous energetic disassembly that they might not notice a tiny corner missing its crates, with scuff and drag marks leading off towards the lift...

Lingun and First Squad finally came up to what was to be understood as the entrance to the bridge. He activated his commlink, "How goes the search?"

"No one was found yet sir, but I think I found something, I'll get back to you later," Jim said as he touched the scuff marks with his gloves and followed it.

"Frenck have you located the life support systems?"

"Yeah I found them goddamn it. Its fucked up but seems to be in working order,"

"Right, we are entering the bridge." Lingun nodded at Sarah, Lewis, and Seli and led the way in. They found a mess though as computer consoles were fried and damaged beyond repair. So much for identifying the ship now, thought Lingun. He made a hand signal for them to fan out and search for any survivors. "This is Captain James Lingun, we are a rescue party from the Belldandy." he yelled out trying to distinguish himself as a friend instead of a assumed pirate boarding party.

"Sir! I found one!" Seli reported, "I think hes coming around."

Captain Lingun's yell was answered by a god-awful hail of automatic fire from two rooms adjacent to the bridge - small arms, assault, even the chainsaw roar of a support autocannon and a spray of superheated globules from a plasma gun. Projectiles filled the room; the master console, already dead, disintegrated in a shower of sparks, shrapnel and acrid fumes from blasted electronics; the walls took enough bullet holes to put a cheese grater to shame - at least, those sections of bulkhead that hadn't been melted by plasma or chewed in half by the relentless sweep of the autocannon. The freighter's crew kept this up for a good 30 seconds of sustained fire, before it petered out clip by clip and finally went quiet. The bridge was silent for an awkward second, save for the pinging of empty casings falling to the floor - and the click-vreeeee of a handgun being armed and held up under Seli's chin by the "unconscious" survivor.

"Ha!" A defiant voice broke the silence. "I thought you could come with a better fake name, Benali, you dirty crawler's get!"

The team ducked behind whatever cover that they could find as the fire raced through. After the initial volley, Lingun looked over to see that everyone was okay and didn't seem to get hit. Lewis and Sarah got out their gauss pistols. Lingun looked glanced over to see Seli being held at gunpoint, before almost getting his head blown off.

"I thought you could come with a better fake name, Benali, you dirty crawler's get!"

"I am not this Benali, I am Captain James Lingun of the Ganoxian Alliance Destroyer Belldandy. We answered your distress signal and found a ship attacking your vessel. We assumed it was pirates and drove them off. Look if we don't get you off of this vessel soon the hull may breach."

Lewis gave the signal that he could take the shot, Lingun quickly shook his head. He came to save these people.

"Captain what the fuck is going on up there? I found the goddamn life support sys--" Lingun turned off the commlink.

"Dun' look like 'im, Cap," the man holding the gun to Seli's head drawled after taking a quick look at all the Ganoxans.

"Say what?"

"Mmm. They's got some right pretty 'quipment, Cap. Nothin' like Benali'd give to his'n. That cheap motherfucker wouldn' buy fuel if he thought 'e could get 'way withit."

A head poked around one of the corners, presumably "Cap's." "Oh... shit. Hey guys, I think we mighta jumped the gun on this one."

A chorus of groans answered him, and someone from the other room threw an empty ammo clip across the bridge at the captain's head. One by one, eight crew members came slowly out onto the bridge, each holding one kind of lethal weapon or another raised.

Lingun stood up from the console first at the behest of Sarah and Lewis who were a bit hesitant to get up from their positions. Seli was a very relieved that his head wasn't blown off right there, but only expressed it with a slow and heavy exhale. Lingun and his other two escorts walked across the bridge to the the captain, "Glad we could this misunderstanding out of the way," he laughed.

Lingun just remembered he turned off the commlink on Frenck. He turned it on, "Frenck come in."

"What in the fucking hell is going on up there?" he asked.

"Just a big misunderstanding."

"Yeah, okay. Well here's another misunderstanding, I found the life support systems to be more fucked up than I first assessed them to be. We got about an hour before it breaks down. SO I advise you to get anyone without a suit to get the fuck off."

"Alright."

"Alright?! Alright is all you have to say. You either are brave or just fucking ret--" Lingun turned off the radio once again. He looked over to the captain, "Well according to my chief engineer we have under an hour to evac your ship before the atmosphere is depleted."