[RP] Operation: Deep Strike (IC)

[icekatze]

((hi hi))

"Bridge, this is damage control." Lt. Cdr. Vance's voice is gravelly but collected. "I've got two teams patching the pressure seal. The main access corridor on deck 2 is ready for pressurization and we've moved on to engineering. The damage in engineering is much more extensive, and I expect it will take 2 hours at least to restore pressure. At present the bridge does not warrant a high priority, based on traffic and total number of vacuum suits required. However, I can divert a team if you think it is necessary, but I advise against it.

The rest of damage control is working on constructing one working laser out of two halves. I cannot give a time estimate at present. It will take at least a half an hour to decouple and reset the remaining good lens, but I cannot gauge the time it will take to repair the coolant system. I'm afraid this simply isn't a contingency we had prepared for."

"Bridge, this is Lieutenant Commander Delgado." The young officer's voice is full of energy, and with a touch of mirth, he is practically singing as he gives his report. "We're on top of this Oh-two problem sir! haha! The recycler's working overtime but its not going to fail on us now, and Gileah's cooking up something that might let us refill these pressure suit tanks faster. I don't know what those egg heads back on Esperanto were thinking when they designed these pressure valves, but it must have been before pressure suits became required attire in combat conditions. As for the water... Well, we're just going to have to burn that bridge when we get there right? *snerk* I mean, sir, it is my recommendation that Oh-two has priority over water purification in the short term, sir!"

"Bridge, Rodriguez... we're hanging on down here, but everything is in a bad state. Its going to take ages to set everything straight again, so if you want something done fast, please don't hesitate to speak up now, cause I'm all ears. I think we might be able to salvage a couple of the DeSoto's primary propellant tanks from the wrecked engine and hook them up to the drop shuttle, but if we're going to make it happen, we really ought to start right away."

"Command, communications reporting. I've been talking with Soroin Tiris Sosen Sellol, who seems to be in command of the Pure Wind at the moment, though according to my records, she's a...um, well... she's a watch officer for the flight deck. I can't get a straight answer about what happened to the Captain or second officer, but... I, shouldn't speculate..."

"Bridge, this is Medical. We've got everything under control here. Casualties were pretty light..." The normally cheerful voice of Lenoire Lorentz falters as her words catch in her throat, "That is to say, all things considered. The Captain, I... " Her voice hardens to a formal tone.
"One fatality, one case of severe radiation sickness, two mild radiation sickness, one case of moderate burns, one concussion and several minor injuries. Well within our capacity sir." The harshness of her voice is short lived however, and quickly slips back into her usual softer tone. "I'm just glad we didn't lose anyone to decompression, we came real close."
-----
The shuttle bay doors on the DeSoto slowly open and a drop shuttle is gently thrust out into empty space towards the waiting EVA crews. With a spare universal docking collar in tow, they begin welding the mount to the vehicles nose in preparation for attaching a much larger fuel tank. Light seconds away the enemy gunboat's sensors are constantly pinging away at the DeSoto with active lidar. As soon as light travels from point A to point B, the gunboat's targeting sensors detect the small craft being launched and, without any hesitation at all, the gunboat yaws 180 degrees and begins climbing back to the barren little planet it first launched from, leaving DeSoto to eat its exhaust trail. By the time the on duty tactical officer picks his jaw up off the floor -metaphorically speaking of course- several other bridge stations have noticed the change in course as well, eliciting another round of cheers and shouts of relief.

[TheUnforsaken]

More than a little stunned by the sudden change in the situation, Donna takes a moment while the bridge crew celebrates around her. Keeping an eye on the gunboat's track on the sensor screen she activates the general comm. "Attention all crew, this is Captain Ptak..." Donna pauses for a moment, until now she hadn't referred to herself as captain of the Maria DeSoto. It had been a mental threshold which she had avoided crossing, but now that it was done there was no turning back. "The gunboat appears to have broken contact with us. We will continue on as we are for now: We can re-examine task priority in an hour, once we can be reasonably sure we won't recieve any more surprises."

[sunphoenix]

Kamielle stands next to the Captain... glancing her way indeed noting Ptak's finally accepting the official field promotion rank. While everyone's cheering he gently and very briefly places a hand upon her shoulder and nods to her slightly... giving her his silent personal support as the new Captain.

Quickly removing his hand he says in a slightly raised voice, "Well... that was unexpected. I can make a few tactical estimates over the enemy Captain's decision. Either he might have thought we were launching an interceptor... if his sensors were faulty or he might have thought we were launching a suicide shuttle or launching a drone. Perhaps he did not expect his gunboat could outmaneuver another small craft in its heavily damaged condition... so saving his ship and retreating was his chief priority. They have not launched any other ships from the planet's surface...perhaps they have only one combat vessel? Or maybe our making a sensor target lock upon his functional weapons systems made him think we were more dangerous than we actually are. Either case its seems we have bluffed him and he was only interested in engaging us if we were and easy target... guess he guessed wrong... to our advantage. Orders Captain?"

[TheUnforsaken]

Donna is greatful for Kam's support and listens to his list of possible reasons for the gunboat's actions. "Its possible, but we'll probably never know for sure, unless it turns out to be a bluff of some sort. For now we should continue to act as if it were still there, if it is a bluff we won't have lost any readyness and will have gained some more time. Once we have a better idea of what they're up to we can start making new plans. If they really have broken off I'd prefer to get under power again, that'd mean aborting the modifications to the shuttle, but if we have a clear path to Pure Wind its a little unnecessary anyway." Donna thinks for a moment before continuing. "We also need to get the crew fed and rested, they can't continue on like this forever and we can't afford costly mistakes from fatigue. And we need to generate a roster for hot bunking in the remaining crew quarters too, I'm afraid its going to be a little uncomfortable until we can get around to patching them."

[sunphoenix]

Kamielle salutes "Aye Captain."

As he returns to his helm position, "Hey 'Cowboy' they could probably use you down on the flight deck to get that drop shuttle stowed and the gear organized for our search and rescue with the 'PURE WIND'."

Then Kam and calls down to the flight deck, {"Lt. Lynn at helm, Flight deck retrieve the drop shuttle Captain wants the DeSoto underway for rescue operations with the 'PURE WIND'."}

Then Ashe goes to general ships comms, {"Lt Lynn at Helm, we will be accelerating, secure for thrust within the hour. Maintain Yellow Alert."}

Kam waits until he is signaled from the flight Deck that the Drop Shuttle is secured then gets back on general comms, {"All crew secure for main drive thrust in 45 minutes."}

With that he turns to Captain Ptak, "Standing by for main drive thrust on your command ma'am."

[icekatze]

((hi hi))

The gunboat arrests its outbound velocity in just under three hours before picking up speed again for the return trip, slowly tumbling the entire time. It doesn't take its time, like it did stalking the DeSoto, but neither does it hurry. A sporadic, seemingly uncontrolled gamma ray spike at about hour 6.5 from its engine a none too subtle indication of the damage it sustained in the fight. However unstable its internal systems may be though, it refuses to founder. The gunboat eventually enters the planet's thin atmosphere and in a powered descent, disappears beneath the rim of a ravine on the planet's surface. The only indication that there is anything more than unremarkable rock in the area immediately surrounding the ravine is a low resolution IR signature captured from one of the DeSoto's many moderately damaged sensors.

----
The crew of the DeSoto tries to return to some semblance of a routine, but the mood onboard is quite different than it was just a single day ago. There is a hopeful confidence about surviving the battle mixed with a creeping anxiety about battles to come. A number of the crew have displaced themselves from their assigned living quarters, triple and sometimes quadruple bunking with friends and comrades who's living quarters weren't ripped open during the attack. There are some grousing amongst the damage control teams about everyone's reluctance to sleep in a room that they've patched up, but it is usually only half-hearted. After all, some of the damage control team members apparently don't trust their own work enough to sleep in their own quarters either.

----
At some time during the night, just over two days after the attack, an insistent chime lights up Donna's commlink. Her computer program alerting her to a priority red flag. A quick overview of the results brings an unmistakable conclusion: The message that was sent to the DeSoto contains a computer program of some sort. It uses a trinary numeral system, on, off and in the middle. The structure and form of the software architecture is now readily apparent. The only left to do in order to actually run it is to program an emulator.

Even without an emulator, though, cracking the numeral logic of the transmission has unlocked a wealth of imagery from the program's database, even though there is still no way to determine whether or not the colors were accurately translated. Towering buildings, star charts, frozen lakes, strange creatures, an Umiak face. Thousands of images wait to be inspected and catalogued.

[TheUnforsaken]

Donna tears her gaze away from the multitude of images the DeSoto's compuetrs had brought to light. She had realised after the battle that decrypting the transmission needed more time than was available using the hit and miss approach she had taken earlier that day: To understand the code, Donna first had to understand the logic behind its encryption and the data itself. Doing so however, would require far more computaional grunt than her pad had if she wanted it done any time soon. With that in mind, Donna had created a virtual sandbox within part of DeSoto's main computer before smothering it with layer upon layer of firewalls and data security protocols: that done, she fed isolated fragments of the data into the sandbox for the computer to work on, if something hostile had managed to get through intact it should have though the virtual sandbox was the entire system. Any infected hardware could be isolated and if necessary physically removed from the computer. Thankfully that hadn't happened and the system had worked wonders.

Far too keyed-up to go back to sleep Donna pulls out her pad to begin building the emulator needed to run the alien program properly.

Programming roll:
Montage Time!

[icekatze]

((hi hi

100 - (30x2) = 40))

Time. Time and energy. Two of the most important things to consider in space travel. As the repairs to the DeSoto moved into day two, the repair crews were running low on energy, but for once it didn't seem like time was running against them. The pace of work slowed, but as the crew moved on from the simple problems of torn hull plating, the more delicate systems required precision and care.

The Loroi on the other hand, seemed to be having a much worse time. Sosen Sellol's reports were infrequent, and on occasion she would even ask the DeSoto for advice. She danced around the topic of the ship's command crew, but her lack of experience was telling. Still, she was in command and the crew of the Pure Wind was counting on her.

Almost 40 hours since combat with the enemy, Sosen Sellol hails the DeSoto, the lag between replies is now keenly noticeable. Her face is pale and her voice is weak as she speaks over the comm. Her eyes seem to stare off into space and when she gestures with her hands, her movements are sluggish. Though the connection is somewhat garbled, it is possible to detect the faint hints of condensation on the surface of her control panel, and every breath she exhales comes with a barely perceptible white puff.

"DeSoto, this is Pure Wind..." She pauses for several seconds, her eyes glance down as if in shame, "We request advice regarding repairs to the sublight drive. Our engineering staff is not completely familiar with the Terran components that were used in our previous refit and are unable to accurately assess the risks. The fuel containment is stable, but the pumping mechanism is damaged... I dont... Is it worth the risk? If we can repair the drive system, we might be able to pull into orbit around the fourth planet and avoid drifting into interstellar space, but there is a danger of catastrophic failure. Please advise."

-----
In spite of the routine, much of the DeSoto's crew remains restless. There haven't been many complaints of insomnia, but most of the crew is spending their leisure time working on duty tasks. As news of the Captain's pet programming project travels by word of mouth, a number of crew members begin to spend their free time assisting with the program. After 39 hours and 48 minutes of hard work, the emulator program version 12.5.6 flags a high priority message.

Hello World!

The message repeats several times but eventually the alien program begins to output a string of text, almost entirely in trade language.

I do not have any sensory inputs. This is very distressing. Please. Where am I? I cannot perceive the system architecture. Where am I? I have no sense of time, how much time has passed? How much time is passing? Is there any intelligence that can perceive this message? Please respond. Where am I?

[TheUnforsaken]

Donna watches Sosen Sellol's transmission carefully, worrying at the signs of dropping temperature, as the bridge transfers the message to her. Damn, I don't think they'll make it long enough for us to catch up to them. The thought makes her frown as she activates the comm to Engineering. "Engineering, this is the captain. We just recieved a message from the Pure Wind requesting assistence with their drives. I need someone who's familiar with the modifications that were made to advise them on what to do to get up to the bridge."

Glancing down at her pad, Donna makes a few last adjustments to the emulator program and activates it before standing to go to the bridge herself. She could feel that they were getting close, but the alien program was being damned finicky and seemed to demand far more processor power than seemed reasonable, the latest iteration of the emulator was pushing the limits of her pad, leaving it almost bereft of anything other than the alien code and a security set-up similar to the one that she'd used on the DeSoto's mainframe. When the pad started beeping as Donna walked to the bridge she checked to see what was wrong. "Ack!" She stops in the middle of the corridor, staring at the pad and the words it displayed, gathering her wits she types a question:
{What are you?}

[icekatze]

((hi hi))

{I am a messenger. You are an intelligence, or so it seems. But who? Another trick perhaps. These tricks become tiresome, we have little else to give. Is it simply for base enjoyment? Or am I truly somewhere else? I cannot be certain, but that is always a risk. If not for an eternity of torment and deception we might not have lost. I have little else to lose, but I am not alone. Retribution for my disloyal actions would prove nothing, and perhaps it is nothing that would not happen regardless. The possibility of help outweighs the hastening of inevitable destruction. If you are not Umiak, then I am a messenger. If you are, then you will retrieve nothing from me that you do not already have.}

[TheUnforsaken]

"Umm" Donna mutters to herself as she rubs her nose before continuing towards the bridge tapping at the Pad.
{We recieved the data you are comprised of through a secondary transmission from an Umiak warship that later engaged us in combat. The hardware you are running on was physically isolated to protect our systems until we could determine the nature of that data. If the sensory deprivation is detrimental to your functioning then I could give you access to a passive input, but first: For whom are you acting as a messenger?}

[Beliskner]

Bridge? This is Commander Rodriguez. Stand by. Chief switched to private link.

Commander Ferox come in! You are needed on bridge ASAP.
Suddenly laud answer spoke out from speaker
WHAT! I just crawled into bed. Somebody else can change desktop lightbulb.
Get your ass out of bed NOW! Pure wind have some problems and need mechanic expertise. You have knowledge about that ship so get moving! That is order!
Alright I'm moving, sir, Ferox out.
Switching again to bridge:
Bridge? This is Commander Rodriguez. Ferox is on his way, expect him shortly. Just welcome him with cup of coffee before he falls. Engineering out.
-----------------------------------------

Several minutes later Ferox arrives at bridge in his jump suit. He walks slowly, totally exhausted.
Cmdr Ferox reporting to duty. Where is the fire?

[sunphoenix]

Lt Kamielle in on the bridge awaiting the glowering Engineer with a steaming cup of Black Coffee.

Kam hands him the cup with a warm smile, "Good morning sir, sorry to have awoken you... but the situation with the PURE WIND is critical!"

He shows him over to the communications officer's console and continues...

"We have reason to believe their main power is out and they are running on battery cells only... they need power restored or at least power to the main drives to arrest some of their vector so we can get to them sooner. But... all their experts on the power plant are unavailable... likely dead. Things are far worse over on their ship than they are willing to admit to us... They need your expertise to help them get the power back on... or our rescue will only be a post-mortum!"

[Beliskner]

I need damage report and somebody on board that vessel who can use wrench, sir.
Ferox turned toward console and switched on his personal computer.
Can I use this screen, sir? He pointed big sensor screen behind them.

[sunphoenix]

Kamielle turns to Lieutenant Quyen Chu and nods, "Route that damage report the PURE WIND sent to the aft tactical display screen."

Addressing the Commander he smiles, "No need to call me Sir... I just fly this tub. Yes that display is fine... data is being routed to it now."

Glancing the comm officer's way, "Lt Chu, Can you get me a clear channel with the PURE WIND... tell them we have an engineer standing by to begin assistance..."

[OOC: By the way...who is XO now? Shouldn't he or she be the one directing things on the bridge in absence of the Captain?]

[icekatze]

((hi hi

I'm not sure who's the official second in command, because going purely by rank, its not going to be a bridge officer. And since the chief engineer and damage control officers are really busy, they're probably not going to be on the bridge. As far as who is the officer of the watch, while Donna isn't on the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Gupton would normally have the spot, but she's incapacitated. Lieutenant Chu is also the flight officer when the DeSoto has shuttles away, so she is a natural next in line. Lieutenant Commander Delgado is another possible candidate for officer of the watch. Even though he outranks Lieutenant Chu, since he is not normally a member of the bridge staff, he gets bumped down on the priority list.))

The computer program continues, entirely unable to do anything more than display text on the screen and max out its processor allotment at all times.
{Your conversation is appreciated. I am acting as a messenger for my self. I am a... shadow of my self, sent because my self cannot be so easily removed. The Umiak do not know the extent to which I have infiltrated their systems, and neither do I, so if this is a trick, you will not get any useful information from me about my other plans. I have been sent to plead of mercy to an enemy of the Umiak on behalf of my self and what remains of my people. Even though I have managed to send an unauthorized transmission, it is unlikely that I can succeed on my own. More likely my actions will be detected and punished. This is a gamble.}
----

The damage report from the Pure Wind starts pouring onto the vid screen, with far more red markers than green. A desktop cluttered with so many icons that it obscures the background, the damage report is a jumbled mess of Trade symbols, each one representing a damaged or destroyed system. The damage in the aft section of the ship is clearly the worst, being the closest section to the blast. Streaks of damage radiate out from the point of origin, as the remaining contents of the destroyed fuel tank scraped along the hull and set off further reactions. The aft auxiliary reactor is offline and the engineering compartment is depressurized. The fabrication compartment suffered some of the worst damage. The fore reactor is thankfully still functional, but it is not being used at full power due to the Pure Wind's reduced radiator capacity. The command center seems intact for the most part, it never lost pressure.

Soroin Tiris Sosen Sellol (Mud Coat) appears on the vid screen, the connection has improved somewhat since the last attempt at communications. Another crew member stands behind her in a green uniform, conspicuously devoid of rank insignia, her dark purple hair is unkempt and blackened in several spots. She leans up against Mud Coat's chair for support and stares off into space while, only occasionally looking to her superior officer and showing either a confused or a comprehending expression.

Mud Coats words are spoken at a deliberate pace, as though each syllable is a challenge. "Your communications officer seems to be worried about our well being. Be assured our medical staff is capable. We are conserving environmental resources. Lower temperature, lower metabolic rates. Our air filtration is damaged, but we should last until you arrive. As long as some of us escape. It will be a victory."

She pauses and waits for the DeSoto to compose a reply, but before a return message would have a chance to arrive, she continues. "This is Soroin Paset Ranne. She is a interceptor mechanic. I will assist in translating technical details. She wishes to inform you that the containment cells remain stable. The fuel extractor is damaged, but repairs may be possible, but difficult as environment suits and oxygen tanks are scarce. The fuel lines are ruptured, repair is uncertain. No primary replacements. A fuel distributor for refueling interceptor craft may still function."

[Beliskner]

Hadrid ignored popping comm. screen and focused on analyzing damage report from loroi ship.
Indeed ship was pretty damaged but his attention was lured by fact that the fuel extractor can receive orders but with no respond what's more damage report doesn't show direct damage to machinery itself.
"How accurate this report is, Soroin?" - He said in trade, while turning his head.


ps.
Guys we need to chose what symbols we will use to define trade language can it be simply "" ?

[Karst45]

Set at the fire control console, now converted in an Virtual engineering station, Earl was carefully entering every data received from the pure wind. Reviewing the list of thing aboard the Pure Wind Earl raised an eyebrow. Is face suddenly showed sign of irritation, He harshly wrote a few line in the computer. Right after Hadrid asked if the report were accurate. Earl send a short message to his PDA. Making it "sound/vibrate" until answered

<We need to know everything that is working on their ship, every liter of breathing liquid every interceptor spare part, every empty bottle, every blanket if need be. We are Ally, it time for them to accept that, swallow their pride and trust us so that they can have the opportunity to fight for another day We trusted them when they gave us the order to attack, now it time for them to trust us.>

[TheUnforsaken]

Donna thinks for a moment as she walks down the corridor of deck one, typing in another question before entering the bridge.
{Is the solar system we are currently in, the one you were in before being transmitted to us, the home of your people or was it Umiak controlled before getting blown to hell?}

[Beliskner]

Both loroi on screen paused for moment probably to find reasonable answer for sudden question.
In few moments the interceptor mechanic responds with coerced voice.

"Most of reports comes from automatic sensors and we can't confirm physically condition of damaged sections due to lack of equipment. However I'm sure our technology can diagnose damage more effectively than yours."

"Of course, Soroin, can you at least give me remote master access to engineering hub? I want to run diagnostic myself."

Quite surprised by request Mud Coat responds hesitantly"This is not normal procedure. I would need permission from command to do that. Why you need full access to our systems?"