Futuristic Order up in 1st Quadrant

[Vagabond Spectre]

Mention: lizardanya Clockwork_Magic PixelSymphony Solaris_ Spiderverse kakemha

MILKY WAY GALAXY, 1ST QUADRANT

It was lonely in these parts of the galaxy. Stars scattered all across like small dots of glitter on a black canvas. Other starships cross in the distance, but out of reach as they are but speeding white lines, The ship diner was set into a jump warp speed. Dashing through the lonely space for who knows for atleast two days.

The ship was mix between rounded and angular, two contrasting designs. The ship upfront was standard in typical spacecraft design. Pointed and a large reinforced window at the bridge whilst the rounder sleek design of the diner constructed behind where there are thrusters underneath the diner's front side. Artino's Diner has been flown through several planets throughout the Milky way. Space diners are relatively new. Artino's Diner mark on the galaxy is still yet to be known.

Something resonated across the sector, it was like some sort of wave. It was invisible to ship detectors and instrument and before it detected so, it is way too late. The ship shakes immensly. The console screens displaying crimson red labels of indicating unpredicted danger. Sparks flew out the floor panels and ceiling. A blaring siren wails across the ship. The man himself leads the diner into manual drive despite losing control at immense speeds. The old man was hurting his wrist. He and the crew had to create an emergency landing on an earthlike planet. It was unidentified, by any of the crew and the star charts. It seems rather remote in this side of the galaxy. It was not an ideal landing spot but it was better than breaking apart from out in the cold vastness of space.

The next thing the crew knew is that the ship diner has entered the atmosphere. It was very similar to Earth's, damaging the ship's outer parts. It is a blessing to that it did not fall apart at entry. Now the only problem is the landing. The ship was soaring above a red sand desert. With nothing for miles. Until in lower altitude, a black line of asphalt with white broken lines. It was a simple but relieving detail. It is not the time to think of such as the old man adjusts the ship to an angle. Landing it with precision. It was not a smooth landing as he puts all the thrusters to their limit just to land this whole establishment into a halt and not slide across the desert. Clanking and popping sounds were all silenced with a giant THUMP.

The Artino's Diner has landed at ???.

---

Mr. Artino

The ship steams of exhaust. Fortunately nothing was on fire. Although the ship was trashed. His hands still stuck on the flight. The old man took a moment to catch his breath. Shaken up as much as the ship was.

Slowly he stood up. The ray of the of the planet's orange sun his eyes between the hand on his face. Pacing his way to the intercom which was damaged but operation. It gave a grainy almost muffled filter as he spoke through the speakers all across the ship.

"Is everyone alright? Meet me at the diner." The man took the red scarf hanging on the flight console seat and made his way through the ship's halls. Some objects like the fire extinguishers were shaken out of place and a few panels in the ceiling were dangling. Only held by the wires it was plugged into. There was sorrow was in his eyes but the face was more determined looking.

He made it into the Diner. There were chairs lying on the ground, a few salt and pepper shakers littered its contents on the tabletops. Kitchen was messy with unsecured food and ingredients staining the whole station. A few decorations on the walls were knocked out and spread about.

"I don't know what just hit us. This has never happened before. There were no cosmic storms in the area. No, it feels almost... It doesn't matter." The man said and shakes his head. Gazing upon the digital clock above the diner counter. It's 5:25AM in this planet. Outside was early in the morning. The sun was fading the dim dark slightly purple sky. It was in the middle of a highway desert but it does indicate that vehicles drive here but nothing is approaching for miles. The old man waits for his crew but in the meantime he is seen setting chairs back up into its proper places and cleaning tables by himself despite having a near disaster just a minute ago.

 

[Clockwork_Magic]

Dr. Kaede Nakano
Medical Officer | Waitress

Location: Ship Med-Bay -> Diner
Mentions: Vagabond Spectre PixelSymphony Solaris_ Spiderverse kakemha

---

It was a bit of a slow day in the ship's med-bay, which was always a good thing. The Venusian doctor would much rather be bored out of her mind in the med bay checking the ship's medicine stocks several times over having a full med-bay with the the weight of several people's lives on her. After checking the shelves and tools in the medbay for what must have been the 15th time in the past 10 minutes, Kaede reclined on one of the chairs in the room, humming a tune from one of her favorite animated shows on the galactic web as she reached to pull out her phone to get a few episodes in while she had the time.

She would have... until she was suddenly thrown off the chair as everything around her started shaking and everything that wasn't welded to the floor began to knock over and fall. Kaede covered her head with her arms while scrambling to get under a table, those menial earthquake drills from grade school finally coming in handy.

Just as suddenly as the chaos came, a short while later everything fell silent, Kaede slowly getting out from under her hiding place and standing up. She let out a hefty sigh as she looked around at the mess that was the med-bay. A bunch of small items laying on the floor, some parts of the ceiling panels coming loose. Well, it seemed that the ship's PA system was still working if Mr. Antonio's announcement was anything to go by. "Well, time to clock in..." She said, grabbing her white coat and stethoscope from the now fallen over chair she was sat at before the ship started shaking as she went out the med-bay doors.

“Mr. Antonio.” Kaede had just finished adjusting her white coat as she walked through the doors to the diner. “Any body aches, pains, or anything else out of the ordinary today? Ah, excuse me for a bit.” She went through her usual spiel, as if he’d come in for a routine checkup before turning to project her voice outward so that any of the crew members on their way in the hallways could hear her better. “If anyone has any injuries or serious pain at all, the doctor will see you immediately!” Kaede turned back to Mr. Antonio as she took a seat. Not on one of the still standing chairs in the diner, however, but on one of the tables. "That was quite the rough landing... anything hurting at all?"

 

[lizardanya]

CLARA | GENERAL MAINTENANCE MECHANIC | WAITER

Clara was sitting in their room, idly scrolling a magazine and listening to music. The ship has stayed in good condition for the past few weeks, thank god, they still did daily checks on as much of the ship as they could without the ability to go outside. They were glad nothing was wrong, and their happiness, of course, could only be so long, as the lights flickered and the ship started shaking.

Clara startled and caught a figurine that fell off the shelf, and let out a flurry of swears. Their whole body quaked when there was a thud, and they swore some more. What kind of a landing was that? One that wrecked absolutely everything, that's what kind. They trembled with anger, squeezing the figurine in their hands, and then hit their head against the bed for a few times to let out the frustration. They groaned as they heard the announcement, face still buried in the sheets. At least one thing works.

They peeked outside through their window, covered by the curtains. Desert. Wonderful. They grabbed a nicotine patch and a pack of cigarettes. Once they get outside, they're going to chain smoke for at least an hour.

They walked through the halls, already noting the damage they saw. When they got to the diner, they were paler than usual, and gritting their teeth.

"How rough was the landing, and what's the predicted status of the ship?" they asked, even though they could already guess it was going to be bad. They were going to inspect everything on their own, of course, but first they needed the Captain's guess. They could already predict it was going to take a long time to fix everything.

 

[Spiderverse]

Tel was leaned back in his designated spot on the bridge, helmet placed lazily on his lap while his feet were kicked up on the console in front of him. At his side lay a large cybernetic repair tool case, with a wide variety of drivers, wrenches, data readers, and sim cards neatly laid throughout. It was a slow day on Artino’s Diner, the ship travelling towards its next destination leaving most of the crew and staff to relax however they saw fit. For Tel, that meant doing his personal check-ups. Unlike most of the crew, whose cybernetic enhancements still rendered them most biological organisms, and thus left mainly in the care of the ship’s lazybones Dr. Nakano; Tel was a cyborg whose structure left him mostly in the care of himself and Clara, if they weren’t annoyed with him (which they often were). He only had a reason to see Nakano if he was having a tummy ache, and since he was mostly in charge of the food, that was rare.

With his dreads tied up into a loose bun, Tel fiddles with the inner mechanisms of his helmet’s visual module and storage apparatus, making doubly sure to carefully reconfigure the wiring so that the visual data gets sent to the mental database after the visual module rather than the storage apparatus, that way his “eyes” can actually react at a normal Human level. Just as he was putting back the data reader, the ship shook immensely as he dropped the tool onto the floor of the bridge, its screen cracking as the consoles displayed crimson red warning labels. He cursed loudly as he scrambles to put his helmet back on and close up the tool case with the damaged data reader inside. While the captain put the ship into manual drive, Tel did his duty of making sure that all of their comm systems worked in the meantime. Though he was only able to verify their ship’s systems, not their external and cross-system comm systems.

As the bossman called through the speakers for the crew to gather up, Tel made a quick trip to his room to put back the tool case before heading over to the diner. Sitting on top of one of the counter’s attached spinning chairs, he looked toward Clara before motioning toward the captain. “At least from my end, most of the comm systems seem to be operational, as you can tell. But the external and cross-system comms still need a thorough diagnostic before I can say for sure. If the atmosphere proves to be harmful to yall, I can take up external repairs in the meantime”.

---

Mentions: lizardanya Vagabond Spectre Clockwork_Magic

 

[Solaris_]

Lokerin was seated at one of the diner’s booths, feet propped up on a table. He bobbed his head along to the beat of the music blasting through his earbuds as he directed his in-game avatar to turn right on the race track. Suddenly, a blue-tentacled creature knocked him off course. He stuck out his tongue in concentration as he tried to steer back onto the track, only to watch as his avatar sailed over a cliff. He cursed under his breath, turning off his game and yanking out his earbuds.

That’s when he heard the clanking and popping. He was thrown sideways into the nearest wall as the ship entered the atmosphere of some new planet. Lokerin’s eyes widened as he looked out the window, the ship rushing to meet a desert of red sand. He grabbed onto the seat for dear life as the ship touched down. A giant THUMP echoed through the ship as Lokerin dashed to catch the diner’s jukebox before it toppled over. He grunted as he caught the weight of it with his shoulder and pushed it upright once more. Glad to see that at least the jukebox was saved, he glanced around the room, assessing the damage.

It wasn’t great. Everything was covered in a light dusting of condiments and ingredients. As he shook his head from side to side, a cloud of spices was shaken free from his hair and he sneezed. The walls were partially bare of their decorations, which now littered the floor.

He glanced up to see that Mr. Artino was attempting to straighten up the mess. Kaede was checking in on everyone as Clara and Tel discussed the condition of the ship. “So…where exactly are we?”, he asked no one in particular as he gestured to the maroon landscape outside. “I don’t recognize this place..."

 

[kakemha]

Eira Hathaway
Archeologist Researcher | Line Cook
​

Eira was safely tucked away in her living quarters. She sat at a large desk with multiple screens open and a magnifying glass close to her face. The archeologist researcher was currently studying a pendant that resembled Ammolite. One of her relatives had sent it to the ship, wondering if Eira might be able to gain any information from it that would raise its appraisal.

Eira's living quarters were filled to the brim with artifacts, luckily most were secured safely behind glass cases. Some were her collection, some were to be sold to her family members, and some were to be sent over to auctions all across the galaxy. If it's anything related to an artifact, the Hathaways were always the ones to call. So it's probably a no-brainer that everything in this room was precious and probably worth millions of riches.

So you can imagine the fear that struck Eira when she heard things breaking and the ship started to shake violently. She clutched the pendant close to her chest as she quickly scanned the room for any more artifacts that might suffer some damage. The ship continued to shake as she ran --- and stumbled --- to check every cabinet in the room, earning her a few bruises from the hard surfaces found in her room.

As the ship landed with a thud, Eira was thrown onto her bed. She was thankful that she did fall flat on her face on the floor. The voice of Mr. Artino came over the comms, checking in on everyone and telling them to meet at the diner. She locked away the pendant for now and started heading towards the diner, making sure to avoid the hanging and broken-off piece of the ship.

Entering the diner revealed that almost everyone was already there. "All the artifacts are intact, although I ended up with a couple of bruises." She said as she walked over to the diner's window. Looking out at the landscape, it seemed that they were in quite a dry area of this planet, and parked along a highway. Eira shared the same sentiment as Lokerin, wonder where in the galaxy they had ended up.

 

[PixelSymphony]

Val'sharra Nightshroud
Navigator | Counter waitress

----

Val idly hummed to whatever song was playing on headphones as she idly manned her nav station. Navigation was an extremely important responsibility on any warp speed jump; the last thing they needed was to collide with another ship, or worse, a star at superliminal speeds. The galaxy was filled with the remnants of those who had failed to the advice of their elders, choosing to just "wing it" and end up smashing themselves into dust on the side of an uncaring planetoid. So she was always intensely focused during her pre-jump preps, double and triple-checking her flight vectors before locking them in for the captain.

But once the ship was in motion, it was all up to Mr. Artino to follow her directions, and for her to just keep an eye out on any idiots who weren't giving them a proper berth in their travel. And on long jumps like this that got *dreadfully boring*. At first she'd tried to simply increase her navigational scans further out to give her something to do, but even that quickly dulled and eventually she was forced to rely on providing her own entertainment, and that was in the forms of the aforementioned headphones. Right now a catchy little pop tune was bouncing around in her ears that made her want to dance and sing along, but she restrained herself to simply bobbing her head and bouncing in her seat as she kept an eye on the monitors. Creator above, when is this jump going to end? I know the calculations said it was about a half-week's travel but it feels like we've been doing this for a month-

Fate would teach Val to be careful about what she wished for as in the span of a heartbeat the ship fell out beneath her, turning her merry bounces into literally launching herself out of her seat as she was unceremoniously dumped on the ground like a sack of potatoes. "What in the myriad hells was that?" she howled, picking herself up off the ground and clambering back into her seat as the ship continued to pitch, dive, and shake like some kind of carnival ride. Her monitors were now blaring alerts angrily, all hinting that disaster had struck the ship. "Captain, what's going on? Our warp drives aren't responding to nav inputs, we're veering off course!" The lack of response from Mr. Artino was more worrying than anything the older man could have said, as it meant he was concentrating to the point of being unable to speak; a glance over to the helm controls told her why, as the blinking "MANUAL CONTROL ACTIVATED" on the lower half of his screen said he had been forced to do exactly the thing she been warned never to do. "Oh merciful Creator," she groaned, a desperate prayer to not spend the last six minutes of her life wondering if she should have stayed in the Church after all. But just as quickly, her fingers flew across the controls of her own station, pulling up chart after chart of nearby systems. "No... no... no... there!" She sent over the nav data to Mr. Artino, his hands locked in a white-knuckle grip as he fought to control their path, "Divert heading to point 235 bearing 119! It's not much but it's all we've got!"

The lurch of the ship told her that he had received her new course, and she watched the terrain of the planet approach at an absolutely maddening angle, until just at the last minute the captain pulled up hard, killing the ship's forward momentum and slamming the ship down on the rocky desert plan like a frisbee coming to rest on a sandy beach. As the thrusters powered down and the ship began venting heat to atmosphere, Val let go of a breath she didn't even realize she'd be holding, taking a few moments to breathe in and out before turning back to face the captain. "Well boss, I dunno how you did it but we're down and we're not dead. Remind me to pilfer the tip jar to buy you a drink." While Mr. Artino went to the intercom to relay the news of their crash landing, she focused her efforts on running scans on the planet's surface, or at least what scans she could; the hard landing had knocked some of the sensors out of whack, and all her results were coming back fuzzier than a cat in a drying machine. "Whooboy. This place is... pretty podunk. I'm reading a whopping *one* settlement of any note, due north on the road you put us down on. Anything further out than that would be like trying to make a two-week weather prediction; I may as well just flip a coin at that point. We're in the thick of it this time, boss."

She transferred the results to her commo and shut down the station, standing to follow the diner owner out the front of house where she took her usual spot behind the counter more out of habit than any particular expectation they'd be serving customers any time soon. Sure enough, just like the rest of the diner the counter was a mess; shakers and sugars and napkin holders had been flung about by the hard landing, and it was going to take her some solid effort to return her station in the diner to anything approaching welcoming. With a sigh she leaned on the counter before her, her white tresses falling to one side as she leaned on an elbow, waiting to hear how Mr. Artino was going to get them out of this mess.