U.P.M.C. Ferrum [Inactive]

"What would happen to who?" Alaric asked, following after Dusk. He doubted he'd get an answer out of him, but he wanted to get an answer to at least one of his questions, and he'd damn well ask a hundred of them if that what it took.Suddenly having an idea, he opened a short wave communicator, praying that the jammer wouldn't affect it.


"Engineer Moray, do you read me? Over."
 
"Three two one...Gahh!" a quick spark shot out of panel Greg was working on indicating indeed the connection had been made to the main reactor. "Come on baby...hold together...just need you to. ehh?" his begging the inanimate object to work was interrupted by a beep on the engineering panel. Walking over to he pressed the Comm button. Hearing Alaric's voice he responded, "Cheif Alaric! this is Moray, I co -krrr-,Damn there is some st-krrr- on th -krrr- kinda -krrrr- ad. Ho -krr- on lem- krr- oost -krr- the gain. There much better. So what's the situation?"
 
"Not good," Alaric admitted. "I'm with Science Officer Dusk at the moment, and he says that the communications jammer could possibly be on the ship itself. It also could be running on nuclear fusion, and with a command could be set to meltdown. You're an engineering type, answer me this. In the ships current state, what would a small yield nuclear device do to us? Best case scenario?"
 
Dusk sighed, "Was wondering when someone was going to ask." He looks around to make sure they were alone, "My contact. She was who resurrected me. But, by doing so, she gained the attention from the people who want me dead. So, I am her protector. In truth," He pauses, stoping in the middle of the hallway, "What I say here, is between just us, got it?" "While I was assigned this ship to be support, my real mission is to find those who hunt me. They were last seen in this area. If I die," a tear forms in his right eye, while the left one stares at Alaric,"She dies, and I couldn't let that happen to her. She means too much to me."


He wipes the liquid from his face.


"Lets get going, I need to talk to her. But first, lets get this jammer."
 
"You should have told me," Alaric growled, following after Dusk. "I don't care what you do in your free time, that's up to you, but I do care when anything could affect this ship, and being hunted comes pretty damn high on that list. You should have bloody well told me, so when we get through this and find this jammer, we're going to have a long hard chat about this 'hunt'. Got it?"
 
There was a pause on the other end of the line a quick exhale and a slow response. "if you said small yield nuclear device...best case scenrio...well judging by the state we're in...umm...The last bits of the ship give out. it gets torn in half...and we all die quickly from the heat... worst case scenario, radiation, starvation, or vacuum exposure." he keyed the comm again. "You got Geiger counters in security, because the more I think about this, the more i'm thinking that we need to go look for this thing and pronto... From what I can tell the Reactor is stable, and the externals after EXTENSIVE repair can handle about 20-30% of the power load. Until the main diagnostic is finished I got nothing but repair work to do, but this takes priority" He then paused and thought "also...even if there wasn't a melt down code...the energy it take to power a sensor scrambler...I could plug that reactor into the ship with enough room...and time."
 
"Then get down here and help us find it," Alaric ordered, touching a small button on his belt, before attaching his helmet. "I've activated my locator beacon, secure frequency epsilon-5564. Put a helmet on, secure yourself against radiation and vacuum and bring anything you need to attach the two reactors. The best thing we can do is find this thing before it goes off, because personally, I don't fancy dying in space."
 
Back at what he had come to refer to in his head as Base Camp, Grigory was collecting as much clean drinking water and radiation pills as possible. He had to be prepared for any new developments, and if there was a potential nuclear device on the ship, this was the most he could do.
 
Felix taps on his communicator "This is Monroe, I'm putting on one of the security HEVs. It should have a Geiger built in. The most likely place for this thing would be the dock on deck 3 or the storage on deck 1 but deck 1 is blown to kingdom come so we should probably try deck 3 first. Also have we considered the possibility of a long distance listening station sending a counter frequency? We passed by commstat df-28bb on our way to this chunk of rock. Who knows maybe someone took it over."
 
"You heard the captain, converge on deck 3 and pray that this thing isn't what we think it is," Alaric agreed. "Captain, I need your authorization to activate the ships blastdoors. It will seal the ship and give us a better chance of riding stuff out, but I can't vouch for their ability to open again. We'd be signing the death warrants of anyone not in the designated safe zone. How copy?"
 
It was about 5 minutes of running up the stairs that Greg came back up to deck 9. Breathing heavily, "I *pantpant* Will Thank GOD when *pantpant* we get the elevators back up and running!" He quickly went to the area that his space suit was in and got it on in a rush. checking everything was working he headed back to the group up point, a tool box in one hand and an extra Geiger in another. he quickly tapped the a small panel on the his arm "This is Greg Moray...in suit, testing to see if comm channel still works..."
 
"This is Alaric, comm channel is a bit shaky but holding fine," Alaric replied. "I'm heading to deck three, although if we're on a time limit, I don't know how quickly I'll be able to get there. May have to go EVA to reach the dock."
 
"Copy Alaric, I'm fine with Going EVA, check mag boots if you have them first. You do not want to be too careful, the suit i'm wearing has maneuvering thrusters in case such an unlikely occurrence happens...Lets just hope this is just a scrambler and nothing else...also at least we'll also be able to see what the outside damage is..."
 
"I'm by an airlock on deck 7," Alaric reported. "Mag-boots are activated, and oxygen levels are reading nominal. I'll see you on the exterior hull."


With that, Alaric reached up and pulled a heavy lever above his head, the door behind him sliding shut instantly.


Stand by, depressurization in progress, the ships computer droned, before the door before Alaric opened, and he took his first steps out onto the hull.
 
"Alaric im going to have to think on that. Let's see what we're dealing with" Felix makes his way for the nearest airlock wearing full security EVA.
 
"Sir, we may not have time to think on it," Alaric sighed, taking another step forward. "But if you want to wait, then I'll wait sir. i just pray that we won't regret it."
 
Airlock depresurizing, stand by, finished depresurizing





With that Greg was on the outside of the hull making his way slowly towards Aleric, for him it looked like a normal walk, err as much as a normal walk you could have on the outside of a ship. He was trained in EVA repairs so for Greg it was normalish, still the vast emptiness of space loomed overhead, not actively reaching out for him, but it was an overarching feeling of a predator, ready to gobble up all that were lost to it's clutches.
 
"Good to see you here," Alaric nodded, making his way towards Greg. He had done EVA walks before countless times, and had even been involved in a few firefights while space walking, but he'd never quite gotten used to the feeling of complete weightlessness. Scanning around, he took in the destruction the asteroid had wrought on the hull, small puffs of oxygen showing where atmosphere was still leaking out of the twisted metal of the hull.


"One hell of a fixer upper eh?"
 
Dusk enters his lab and sighs, "Damn, this situation is not good." He walked over to his lab table and began to type on the keyboard connected to the computer. "Lets start this scan for this damned device. We need to find this before it goes off."


The computer screen flashed a red error message at him, saying, "No traces found"


"Well, guess I will have to do a radiation scan, see if that finds anything."


Again, a red error message.


"What could be hiding these wavelengths like this?" he said, "There is only one explanation for this, and it might actually help us. If I set my scanners to scan the entire ship for heat signatures, this thing should be hotter than a reactor core."


The lights on Dusk's computers began to show the scan of the ship. Red and blue images slowly developed over the large screen.


"Now, we wait," he said, "And I still have time to contact Sydney. This information that I have found could help with the plan..."
 
Felix walked up to the two chunkily. He'd done work on the outside of ships numerous times but never quite got the hang of the entire magnet boot thing. He didn't look like he belonged in the suit he was wearing and was looking stressfully tired. "Don't make fun of my baby...or what's left of her i guess."
 
Greg chuckled a bit, "Sir, i'm one of the people in charge of keeping your baby in shape or patching her up. If people are laughing at her. then that means they're laughing at my handiwork, and me as well. Now lets get to deck 3... I want to find that scrambler, and whoever did this...Though Alaric and Captain, that'd be your expertise... I'm not much of a fighter."
 
"You don't have to be out here captain," Alaric said softly, walking towards the captain and quickly checking over his suit to ensure that everything was working properly. "Seeing your ship in this state can't be easy. And Greg, Captain, if there is any fighting, you let me go first. Ok?"
 
Back in his office, Robert flipped vigorously through a thick book, running his finger down each page before flipping to the next. He shook his head. Apparently, the UPA had no protocol for a stranded ship with jammed communications. Robert shook his head and threw the book aside. He stared at the ceiling blackly for a while, then grinned. "LIFE BOATS!" he yelled. "LIFE BOATS LIFE BOATS LIFE BOATS!" He darted out of his office to tell the captain. Finally, Robert felt like he was in control.
 
"Well I want to be out here. It's no better in there...there's so much death... it gets hard to handle. All the people who looked up to me. I was their leader...look at me now...look at us now. Hell the engines are probably entirely blown. We can't reconstruct all of them and even then we'd need operational gyros and maneuvering. Which who knows how much we lost. And all the lifeboats or escape pods if you will were on deck 5. There's no way we could get all the people to them with the amount of suits we have." He sighed deeply. "I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now we have a docking bay to search."
 
"You couldn't have predicted this captain," Alaric assumed him, before beginning to slowly work towards the third deck. "Being in command...it means that you sometimes have to accept loses. It's hard, but we have to learn to accept them, especially when it's not your fault. Still, maybe we can get some of the pods down to deck nine for launch, who knows?"
 
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