Futuristic Sky Dreamer: (IC)

[Darrian_Gabriel]

“Sorry for the break off there Commander, do you still copy? Commander Castillo, come in. Traverse, this is Falchion 34 Alpha are you there? Come in, Traverse, come in…” Captain Conover’s attempts to re-establish communication with the Traverse is only met by deafening static “Dammit, the line’s broken.”

“Beggin your pardon Captain, but we’ve got bigger problems at the moment!” says Hurd as he steers hard to maintain control of the Falchion.

“Roger that Lieutenant, you can ease up on the stabilizers, I’ll take over for a bit.” says Conover as he switches a few dials on his steering console.

“Transferring stabilizers over to you.” says Hurd with great relief as the Captain takes over driving the Falchion.

“Jenkins, talk to me, what do we have on those horizon sensors?” shouts Conover.

“Bogie’s everywhere Captain, but I think we’re past most of the big shit!” yells Jenkins from his perch in the upper most cockpit.

“Wanna bet!” yells Conover as a massive mountain size piece of wreckage comes barreling towards the Falchion out of nowhere. Conover fires off the fighter vessel’s built in plasma canons, blasting the piece of wreckage into smoldering cinders, mere moments from the Falchion being crushed by the marauding debris.

Jenkins closes his eyes in dread “Please tell me that won’t result in demerits when we make it back to base.”

“Just shut up and keep focused on those sensors soldier! That happens again and it won’t be demerits you’ll have to worry about, am I clear!” reprimands Conover.

“Sir, yes sir…” says Jenkins, with beads of sweat dripping down his face.

“If we’re barely making it through this mess, that freighter hasn’t got a chance it hell.” says Hurd.

“Well like you said Lieutenant, can’t worry about that now.” says Conover as he gestures over to one of the main gauges on the console “Notice anything about our propulsion exhaust?”

Hurd looks closer and his face is suddenly stricken with panic “Those readings are negative. Holy shit, that can only mean the main fuel lines are damaged. At this rate, we’ll never make it out of the debris field, before we run out of fuel!”

“Now you see the gravity of situation, Lieutenant.” says Conover.

“Lambert, get those navigational specs onto our console now, we gotta major situation here!” yells Hurd.

“I don’t have much!” yells back Lambert from his position on the far end of the cockpit.

“You better tell us something Lambert! I estimate another fifteen hundred microts before the Falchion is completely out of fuel!” shouts Conover.

“Roger that, sending over specs now. Sensors are picking up a large shot out lump. Could be a piece of wreckage, an asteroid or nothing at all, but it’s the best I can do!” says Lambert.

Two bright holo screens blink to life in front of Conover and Hurd, displaying several digital read outs and a stream of coordinates.

“Fuck it, it’ll have to do, we gotta land somewhere. Hurd activate the docking web and lock on to whatever the hell that thing is, we’re comin in.” says Conover, his voice tense.

“Roger that Captain, initiating tractor guidance systems now.” says Hurd.

The Falchion maneuvers it’s way through several large chunks of rock and debris heading towards a large dome shaped citadel, which looks to be the ruined remains of a large ship floating amongst the vast debris field.

“I’ll be damned, that looks like it could be one of ours.” remarks Hurd as the Falchion comes in closer to the derelict vessel.

“Jenkins, you pickin anything up on the magnified specs?” asks Conover.

“Resolution is fuzzy but it almost looks like a faded serial number on the starboard side of the hull. Looks like UNI-0006. Looks like what might be a name, trying to enhance now…Ok Captain I got something. Designation reads as Krayger Zelbinion.”

Conover’s face suddenly turns deathly white “My God it can’t be. Jenkins are you sure?”

“That’s what she says Captain.”

“The Krayger Zelbinion disappeared over a hundred years ago.”

“In the same Wicked Space sector we were crossing.” says Hurd as he completes Conover’s statement.

The Falchion slowly glides into a small opening on the side of the massive hull of the derelict and cautiously touches down inside one of the open tiers of the Zelbinion.

“With two hundred microts to spare. Great job Captain.” says Hurd as he pats Conover’s shoulder.

“Don’t break out the party favors just yet Lieutenant. If this is the Krayger Zelbinion, than we gotta find out just how she got here, not to mention ourselves. There’s no telling what’s waiting for us outside that hatchway.” says Conover.

 

[Zeth]

Illumination on the bridge was automatically replaced by dull red pulsing of emergency lights; without looking it up, Silas, almost instinctively, knew that Traverse's reactor's output went below optimal operational threshold. However, as ship's inertia dampers struggled against the shocks that reverberated throughout the hull, as blaring alarms were silenced one by one, Silas struggled against another kind of crisis.
A ship-bound android was more than a pedantic bureaucratic label, virtue of additional modules built into his body in order to foster a closer connection with the ship. Silas was no different in this, however, during his tenure he often associated such bond something akin to a platonic relationship to a ship rather than to a ball & chain imprisonment.

Virtue of his station demanded such intimacy. In case the crew failed or part of the ship was inaccessible Silas could, remotely, still maintain the functionality of the ship enough for it to reach drydock. However, even the best works of man were susceptible to the unknown, and as Silas tried his best to raise to the occasion he realized he was slowly learning this the hard way. Now, such close connection to the Traverse left him open to an informational deluge, and Silas risked becoming paralyzed from the data-shock, as his positronic chips slowly came closer and closer to deadlocking themselves in futile attempts to solve same logical problems, over and over again, in perpetuity.

With a deep frown and clenched teeth he tried diverting the onslaught to the Auxilliary Network to buy himself some time to make sense of the situation. As he did so, he realized he was sending the precious information into the void as the Network was already down, its precious computational powers lost to him and ultimately the crew until it could be brought back online. Knowing how crucial the first reports were in solving any crisis, with a heavy heart he dumped the data.

Then a lone ping on priority channel came from Traverse's Prime AI Core - the computational unit that regulated the statuses of all other onboard AIs. The pinging itself constituted an emergency as the Prime Core usually communicated with Silas indirectly, through other AIs and diagnostic instrumentation.

By directly transmitting data to him it meant it could not reach anyone else. The packets received did little to lift Silas's blindness yet despite not knowing the cause of their sudden predicament, he knew it could not be natural. He would recognize weapon damage or simple meteorite impacts. Whatever this was - it was an anomaly.
Everything that can go wrong already did - at the same time!

++ Cascading system failure. ++

Following the ominous report was a litany of systems that were not responding. For a moment Silas thought to reach Kasey and enlist his help, but even as the thought-instruction came to the forefront of his awareness, it was quickly replaced by the operational directive from the Prime Core. Both ship and Android knew how dire the situation was and how little they could do to change it.

However, before the embedded instructions that would activate the Yutani-Yevschenko code could trigger, Silas blocked the connection with the Prime Core with a burst of frustrated spite and white noise. He even surprised himself, and for a moment he questioned his processes and whether they were perhaps compromised by his affection for their fleshy charges.

There must be something that could be done!
He struggled with the idea of informing the crew. He was not sure he should, knowing the blow to morale might be far more damaging to their efforts now than any outside threat.

His internal chronometer realized that fifteen mycrots have already passed since the first alarms started blaring - a tardiness worthy of termination by Yutani-Yevschenko QA. Sidelining such thoughts, Papa focused on trying to do doing something - anything! He knew disabling manual mode now would be suicide before they retrieved Auxilliary Network, so he focused on maintaining stable flight and re-establishing communication with their Uni-Force escort. Then he heard Gabriel's communique with Marv.

“That’s not an option Scutter, you hear me! I want that Chrystherium secured and those leaks stabilized, I don’t care what you have to do! I’m en route now!”

Silas thought for a moment about his previous decision before speaking up with a tone to impress urgency upon Gabriel, without compromising the man by revealing too much:

“Commander there may not be a choice.”

“We are NOT jettisoning that cargo Mr. Silas! That Chystherium could be our biggest pay day yet and I’m not willing to jeopardize this delivery! Just get those auxiliary networks back online!”

Silas understood the reasoning behind Gabriel's words and from what kind of ignorance such a conclusion was made. The experience was surreal and he felt he was letting everyone down by doing this. Squeezing the flight stick, he focused on flying amidst the debris, rousing the unresponsive systems and assessing the damage, while attempting at the same time to establish communication with their escort.

Work now, there will be time for regrets later!

 

[dae mec]

The ship juddered, and tendril of fear threaded through Lu-Lee. In her three years on the Traverse, she'd never felt the ship shake like this before. She quickly shoved that feeling deep down, and using the wall to support herself, went to the clinic. The networks were erratic, but with the assistance of the mainform ports in the medic bay, Lu-Lee managed to pull up the vital signs and locations of the crew. She did a brief scan, noting that everyone looked normal and were in their expected locations—

The fear returned, but this time, it clamped down on her heart. The chatty and flippant medic could only manage to breathe out a single word: "No!"

Half-stumbling, half-running, Lu-Lee made it to the propulsion hanger with an emergency kit in hand. The ship groaned and screamed underneath her, bolts popping and metal bending under stress. Alarm signs and red marks she didn't recognize appeared in the corner of her HUD, but she ignored them all, focused on only one goal. Lu-Lee staggered into the bay, and when the ship convulsed again, she fell to her hands and knees.

The propulsion bay was a mess. A support pillar had fallen, and other structural pieces were scattered across the floor. Sparks flew, unknown liquid sloshed, and separate sirens blared unique warnings. Lu-Lee scanned the room, both with her flesh eye and the implant. Infared found him first. There. The bright red shape of a body, rapidly cooling. Lu-Lee crawled past loose wires and debris to Kasey Menyton, the flight engineer, crushed under a steel-frame main terminal.

"Stay with me, Menyton," she hissed, slapping a bandage sheet on his stomach laceration.

His vitals were dropping faster, heart rate slowing and blood oxygen rates creeping to lethal levels. Lu-Lee put compression packs above his pinned arm and leg, but she knew crush injuries were the worst to fix. But if she could only just stabilize him enough to move, she could bring him to the med bay where they could patch him up. Lu-Lee took in the data, reading a hundred different changing statistics that all lead to the same conclusion she refused to accept. His breathing was shallow. He didn't respond.

"Menyton! Menyton! Kasey!"

Lu-Lee did everything she could, for much longer than she should have, but all the numbers hit zero. She gave a shaky exhale and sat back. For a moment, she let herself feel grief. She let herself feel failure and loss, because the man who'd watched dumb soaps with her and Silas, who'd helped her with her programs, who had a son waiting for him... he was no more. Then, Lu-Lee stood up, removed her gloves, and wiped off the remaining blood. She'd find stains later, but that was a concern for later. Proper mourning could happen later.

She sent preliminary death report officially noting time of death. She CC'ed the captain and Silas to it. No one else needed to know, not yet, and the full report could be written after this crisis. Like Menyton's had, the ships condition seemed to be worsening with every passing moment. With a calm, distant voice, she called Silas and the captain through the comms.

"I'm in the propulsion hanger, sirs. The area's a wreck. Is there anything I can do to stabilize the ship from here?"

 

[Tempestus]

“Scutter, forget the hull and help me lock down this containment field! If the Chystherium gets to ionization levels, were all fucked!”

"Ay, captain," Marv replied.

Someone would eventually have to go EVA and fix up the hull, but Commander Castillo was right. The cabin had already fallen to 16 degrees Celsius by the captain's arrival on scene and continued to fall precipitously. Marv remembered being briefed on this several times back on Io, snoozing through most of the jibber jabber. However, when his instructor mentioned explosions, that's when Marv's ears perked up. Chrystherium, like most things, seemed to work best under room temperature, but when introduced to cold it was bound to pop off like a CO2 canister magnified a thousand fold. Yes, to Marv's surprise the explosivity took on a freezing effect which not only kicked the front door in, but glassed the door and everything inside.

With that grim thought pushed aside, Marv inserted a live wire reader into a nearby power terminal and received low feedback readings. He shot a glance to Jesus and Diego. "Patchman too slow. It's up to us now, boys. We gotta redirect powa from here..." he pointed to a node on Jesus' PDA indicating Crew Quarters. "....to here" he said as his finger landed on the containment window to the Chrystherium.

"Diego, geared up? You comin wit' me. If Core's gone vaccum, I'mma need ya to walk the cat." There was no telling what the drive looked like, or whether Menyton's quietness meant he was busy maintaining power. Marv figured he could use a hand in any case.

"Jesus, hand the cap a torch and help liquiseal that hatch. Be back in a New York minute!" he yelled, trudging across the metal grates toward Auxiliary Power. The engine room itself would be off limits to them, but they could still tap into some of the ship's energy reserves. When they reached the decompression chamber, several warning lights pinged off from the blast door. "PRESSURE LOW. OXYGEN LOW. EVA SUIT REQUIRED." Marv wrinkled his forehead in frustration.

"I'm in the propulsion hanger, sirs. The area's a wreck. Is there anything I can do to stabilize the ship from here?" came a women's voice on the comms.

"Ms. Lu-Lee ma'am, Diego's comin to ya through hazard area! Can ya open up from your side?" If she was in the Engine Room, she could swipe him in without prying the door open. Then it would only be a matter of talking the cargo tech through the different live wires and which ones to cross. "It's okay...it's okay," Marv said softly, taking a seat on the floor and wiping the sweat from his brow. "I'll be on the talkie, walk ya through."

 

[dae mec]

She blinked at Marv's voice in her ear. "I—Yeah, I think I can get the door open from this side." The soft words that followed his request gave her pause, though. He wasn't talking to her, was she? Marv didn't have to walk her through anything... right? Well, she'd find out.

Lu-Lee pulled up the map on her HUD, grimacing at how it glitched in the corner. (The failing systems were giving her a headache.) The entrance he was talking about was on the other side. After one last glance at the cooling body, she made her way to there, dodging the debris. The ship shuddered, and she almost fell over.

"Ssi-bal puta!" she swore, banging her elbow on the support she used to keep her balance. "I'm alright," Lu-Lee added immediately in the comms. Once the ship steadied again, she hurried to the door.

Lu-Lee tried connecting wirelessly to the access port, but it refused. She tried again. She physically hooked her PDA to the port. "I'm there, I'm trying to get it open." Lu-Lee kicked it. Slowly, the door started to slide. It stopped, leaving a gap just barely enough for a child to get through. She put her hands on the door, and with enough force to make her back implants ache, heaved.

"Stupid... fucking..." she grunted, taking out all the anger on the door, forcing it just an inch more. The light blinked green, and fast enough to make her fall over again, the door slid open all the way. Lu-Lee bounced back to her feet and rubbed her cheek, grimacing at the dried blood. "It's open!"

 

[Darrian_Gabriel]

While Scutter and Gabriel worked feverishly to maintain the Chystherium containment field, the Commander hears Lu-Lee’s voice over comms, which were starting to glitch out at an ever increasing rate.

"I'm in the propulsion hanger, sirs. The area's a wreck. Is there anything I can do to stabilize the ship from here?”

“I thought Menyton was supposed to be running a systems check on those thrusters, where the hell is he?” yells Gabriel back over the comms, before the ship jolts wildly, sending the Commander tumbling into a far wall, causing his comms to glitch out beyond recognition “Comms are glitching out and the ship took a big jolt, Lee do you still read me? Menyton come in! Anyone in that goddamned propulsion hangar pick up!” he is greeted with nothing but static.

The huge jolt resulted in not only the comm system to malfunction but also a flash freeze in the containment field. Scutter responded with trying to gauge a few power readings from a nearby terminal. Unfortunately the readout was far to low so a decision was made to try and re-direct power from the Auxiliary Power Quarters. He took Diego with him, leaving Jesus and Gabriel to liquid-seal one of the remaining hatches. Jesus handed Gabriel a torch as the beads of sweat drip down the Commander’s face as he desperately tries to get things under control.

“Cargo hangar reaching critical failure, structural integrity down to twelve percent. Automatic jettison of compartment in thirty mycrots.” blared the ship’s Kinetic A.I.

Gabriel rolls out from underneath the damaged hatch as a look of sheer frustrated defeat flashes across his eyes. It was in that moment, he knew he didn’t have a choice, abandon his cargo or jeopardize his crew. In unbridled rage he violently throws the torch into a nearby wall. He grabs Jesus, shoves him through a nearby port hatch and safely into a separate compartment. With a flick of a switch, he seals off all remaining exits and entrances into the cargo bay and smashes the large red manual jettison button.

“Jettisoning compartment in five mycrots…” says the A.I.

Gabriel casually walks through main hatchway, mere seconds before it slams shut behind him, permanently sealing the cargo bay off. He slides down the wall in defeat as the cargo bay detaches from the rest of the Traverse and floats off into outer space, now joining the endless debris field that now surrounded them. After a few moments he raises back to his feet, his sweat now soaking through his black shirt. In an almost catatonic manner, he goes over to a nearby comm box and addresses the crew.

“It’s gone people, all our hard work, flushed down shipping lane shitter. We have no more cargo. But we’re not out of the woods yet, this ship is literally imploding around us and if we don’t get out of this debris field , we’re gonna be joining our cargo in freight hauling heaven. I want everyone to report in. Mr. Silas, Menyton, Lee…what’s your status?” Gabriel says in an eerily calm, yet frustrated tone.

 

[Zeth]

Falling like a droplet in a hailstorm, Traverse plunged through the graveyard of dead ships. Ship careened almost aimlessly, ever-deeper into the nebula, collisions with ancient wrecks becoming more and more deadly. To the android at the helm of the hauler, despite the increasing number of dead sensors, this fact became painfully clear. The situation was dire the moment they crossed the boundaries of Wicked Space, but now Silas knew they would be lucky if they manage to come out of this alive.

His awareness into the interior of the ship was nonexistent but that did not trouble him as the fact that his communication link with the Prime Core was silent. Silas hoped this was either due to power fluctuations or overloading of information channels, rather than the alternative. He tried not to think about the alternative.

Each new impact against the hull made him wince in sympathetic pain, more so as the Anti-Matter Heat Shields were offline. Each new hit could rapture something critical onboard and by the time one of the peripheral intelligence cores - the Kinetic AI - informed him of emergency jettisoning of the cargo module, Silas already accepted it as gone. In his mind, he should've assumed control as was the protocol and jettisoned the damned thing before it became an issue.

Handling improved, and with each degree of maneuverability recovered Silas's guilt festered deeper. Clenching his teeth in pain, he looked out into the swirling colors of the nebula, one particular thought paining him the most. In almost three centuries of his service, he never endangered human life. He hoped no one paid with one for this mistake.

At least the internship communication remained operational.

“It’s gone people, all our hard work, flushed down shipping lane shitter. We have no more cargo. But we’re not out of the woods yet, this ship is literally imploding around us and if we don’t get out of this debris field, we’re gonna be joining our cargo in freight hauling heaven. I want everyone to report in. Mr. Silas, Menyton, Lee…what’s your status?”

"Fully functional Commander."

He spent an additional moment wrestling with the momentum of their hauler-turned-fireball, managing to arrest its deadly trajectory while paying special attention to the ongoing crew status check.

Kasey did not respond. Several moments later he still did not respond. Silas pulled up hid PDA overlay. Seeing the flatline he wanted to call for Luciana, but her own erratic BPM line told him enough. At the tragic realization, an incredible numbness settled over him. And then - an eruption.

Instead of seeing the cockpits control board, Papa saw a boy with curled blonde hair giggling on the couch next to him in the crew lounge area. He saw him as he talked softly of his dreams and goals, his family and far-away home. Such potential lost, because the clown world he was obliged too, pushed him into the depth of space to die. Because despite the inherent danger of this work he was supposed to come back alive. That was Silas's sole duty and he failed because he put Gabriel's sensibilities before the safety protocol of the company. Suddenly, Silas was angry at all and everything.

The higher cognition chip, sensing a loss of effectiveness, suppressed parts of his body in charge of creating biological states necessary for fostering emotions. The eruption within him receded to the pits of his stomach, quiet but never calm - bubbling with suppressed potency promising gnashing teeth and bloody murder.

Everything was much clearer now with the blond boy and the couch gone, but also much more dull and insubstantial. The sensation was nauseating at times and he wondered if this was the state of emotionless limbo in which AIs existed. Almost without a thought, he blink-clicked the comms on, his tone unnaturally calm and collected:

"I've managed to stabilize our trajectory and I advise we take shelter in one of the bigger wrecks. We shut down everything, suit up, take stock of the situation. Repair - maybe even scavenge something useful that could help us. The cargo, with all due respect Commander, is of secondary importance. In the void, there is no space for Chystherium to violently react to. We could possibly retrieve it later if the module does not explode."