Character: Verroel
NPC: Sosazue (Junior Engineer), Dr. Gvekhs, Dzo (crewman)
Location: Medbay
System: Unknown
Verroel opens his eyes. Things are blurry.
"He's coming around, Doctor."
Verroel blinks several times, Sosazue comes into focus. She's soon joined by
Dr. Gvekhs.
"Good," he says.
"What happened?" Verroel asks. He realizes that his helmet is off, but he's
still wearing his vacc suit.
Dr. Gvekhs replies, "It appears that you took a rifle butt to the back of the
head."
Verroel tries to sit up, but is hit by a pounding headache and dizziness.
He growls and winces. He takes a deep breath and lies back down knowing that a
blow to the head is a serious thing.
"Hold on there, Verroel," Dr. Gvekhs says, placing a hand on his chest. Give
yourself a few more minutes. We're not in any danger."
Verroel growls a curse, then says, "Where are they?"
"Everyone's gone," Sosazue replies. "The aliens. The corsairs. Both gone. We
guess that the aliens went out through the airlock. The corsairs took our
g-carrier. We got notice on the bridge that the g-carrier hangar bay was opening
and commed you. We went down to the cargo bay and found you lying face down on
the deck."
"We were worried that they'd killed you," Dr. Gvekhs adds, his relief apparent
in his voice. "Dzo's back on the bridge, monitoring what he can from what's left
of internal sensors."
"How long have they been gone?"
"About an hour now," Sosazue replies.
"Do we know where we are?"
"No. Sensors were knocked out in the crash, and with the power plant offline, we
didn't want to drain our batteries."
"Where could the corsairs be going with the g carrier?"
Gvekhs fields this one. "I think they realized that this ship is never going to
fly again and decided to take their chances out there rather than sit around
here waiting for rescue. If the sensors on board the gc are ok, they'll be able
to figure out where they are and plan their next move."
"What is the status of the engines?"
Sosazue tilts her head to the side. "Same as before: wrecked in the crash. The
power plant is still cooling. We should be able to get in there in about an
hour."
Dr. Gvekhs adds, "If you're a good patient, I'll even let you help her work on
it."
Verroel wants to wag his tail, but it's underneath him.
Gvekhs and Sosazue help Verroel to the bridge, where he outlines his plans for
their survival. They nod in agreement. After an hour, Verroel and Sosazue head
down to engineering to begin repairs on the power plant.
While things are still a bit warm, it's within the tolerances of the vacc suits.
After a couple of hours, a fair amount of progress has been made re-aligning
the magnetic collars.
Someone is banging on the reactor wall. Sosazue and Verroel exchange glances,
clearly worried that the aliens have returned, but then Dzo's head pops inside
the hatch (It's still attached to his body).
"Hey guys! I was trying to comm you, but the reactor wall must be too thick."
"What's up?" asks Sosazue.
"Captain Kukagerrg is here with a rescue party!"
"What? Are you sure?"
"Oh, I'm definitely sure. Can we spare the power to cycle the airlock?"
"Of course!"
Verroel growls at the mention of their absent captain. "Keep working, Sosazue, I
am going to check on the captain."
"Tell it to my tail. I'm going down."
Despite her sore ribs, she scrambles down from her perch inside the reactor and
out through the access hatch.
Character: Fi Khong, Verroel
NPC: Kukagerrg, Vuedueloghz, Laki Semarkali (on Happy Trails),
Sosazue, Dr. Gvekhs, Dzo
Location: unnamed comet
System: Voenggaks (Windhorn 1738)
After being given the proper comm frequency, Verroel's voice comes over the
line. "Kukagerrg, where are we, and what kind of rescue party did you find? You
can understand I'm not entirely trusting after being ambushed from behind."
Kukagerrg answers, "Well, that's gratitude for you."
Verroel barks. "The knot on the back of my head has injured my gratitude gland."
Fi jumps into the conversation, "Verroel, it's me, Fi. We're standing outside.
I've got Vued here—"
Vued says, "He must be hungry. He gets cranky when he doesn't eat."
Fi continues, "We're on a comet in the Voenggaks system. Happy Trails is
parked about 30 meters from the airlock. The system navy is sending a couple of
ships but they won't be here for another hour or so. We were already on our way
out to jump when we got your distress beacon."
Verroel jaw drops at the sound of his packmates' voices. "By Klono's own
gadolinium guts, it's good to hear from you two."
Sosazue is already cycling the airlock to let the rescuers in.
In the meantime, Verroel keeps talking, "Come on in then and tell me what
happened after I was...kidnapped by our captain with a wrench."
Fi explains that after the blast knocked Verroel unconscious, he and Kukagerrg
got out through the emergency exit and called station security. Once they
arrived, they all went back to the hangar, but before they could get inside, the
hijackers had depressurized the bay, so safety protocols prevented them from
getting inside. "Then they fired up full thrusters inside the bay, blowing out
the airlock window. As patrol cruisers closed in, the hijackers went to jump.
The gravity waves rocked the station.
The airlock cycle completes. Sosazue is the first through the airlock and rushes
over to hug Kukagerrg. Dzo and Dr. Gvekhs follow. Verroel is almost tackled by
Vued. Fi isn't as physically exuberant, but the expression on his face shows
that he doesn't feel any less relieved to see Verroel alive.
Verroel's tail is wagging in a mile a minute as he returns Vued's vigorous hug
and pulls Fi in as well.
After they break, he says to Kukagerrg, "I'm sorry to leave you with a
half-wrecked ship, Kukagerrg. It can be salvaged."
"So how did you find us?" Dr. Gvekhs asks.
"Lady luck!" Kukagerrg replies. "We assumed the hijackers were Disjuncture
agents and headed coreward since the only way across the gap between our states
is Kasukfog."
"But we misjumped. We could've been anywhere," Dr. Gvekhs protests.
"Yes! But we needed to start somewhere. If we had to, we were prepared to head
into Disjuncture territory to find you. In fact, we were on our way to
Igvaellrarr when we got word of your distress beacon."
"Our comms are out. It was the only thing we could do," says Dzo.
Kukagerrg takes a breath, then asks, "So what happened between the hijacking and
the departure of the hijackers?"
Verroel replies, "This crew of space pirates misjumped, and I saved their tails
from some kind of extra-dimensional creatures."
Confused looks are shared among the rescuers.
Dr. Gvekhs elaborates. "Verroel was in medical stasis at first, recovering from
his injuries. Then, when he woke, the leader of the hijackers recognized
him—"
"Dharla!" Verroel interrupts. "Can you believe it, Fi? It was fukhin' Dharla."
Gvekhs continues, "So she ordered him to be put back into stasis. While he was
there, the jumpspace aliens started messing with the crews' and the hijackers'
minds. There were several murders and suicides. These aliens took over the ship,
including Rufus. He opened the airlock, letting them on board. The hijackers
tried fighting them off, but there were too few of them left. We retreated to
the upper deck while the aliens set up a nest in the cargo hold.
"Dharla, she was their leader, gave me permission to revive Verroel since our
numbers were too few. He led a hunt down to engineering so that Sosazue could
retrieve her toolbox, which she used to hack into the ship's locker for more
weapons."
"But we lost Oragrengouz to them," Sosazue interjects. "He was catatonic."
"Right. He's in a cryopod." Dr. Gvekhs pauses a moment. "Anyway, Verroel was
leading a team to assault the cargo hold when we dropped out of jump, heading
straight for this rock. Rufus had locked out the bridge controls from
engineering, so Verroel and Sosazue went down there to get us control of the
maneuver drive."
"You succeeded?" Kukagerrg asks.
"Oh we would've been splattered all over this rock," Dzo answers. "Believe me. I
got power just in time to belly slide."
"Were the aliens killed in the crash?" Kukagerrg asks.
"We don't know," Dr. Gvekhs answers. "Verroel went down to the cargo hold with
the surviving hijackers—"
"The aliens were gone, and then the backstabbing hijackers knocked me
unconscious."
Dzo adds, "We saw the g-carrier hangar door open, and that's the last we've seen
of them."
"Any idea where they went?"
"External sensors are out. Sosazue and Verroel have been working on repairing
the power plant. We weren't expecting a rescue so soon."
Verroel growls. "I, for one, am hot to take down the hijackers. They couldn't
have got far unless they have a ship in system close enough to burn here and
rendezvous with them. We should alert the system authorities to scan for any
ships moving this way as well as get back to Happy Trails and scan for the
carrier. They only have a few ways off."
Kukagerrg reassures him. "The authorities will be here soon. We'll notify them
just as soon as they do."
"But what about those aliens?" Vued asks.
Verroel looks uneasy after hearing the question. "They are here on this rock
although they are surviving in the vacuum. I'm not sure what they are, but I
don't want to meet them again."
Vued's ears flop. "Aliens that can survive in vacuum without vacc suits?
That's...weird. Scary weird. And they came from jumpspace?"
Dr. Gvekhs answers, "Yes. Not like anything I've ever seen. We have some video
of them on the ship logged in the computer."
Fi says, "I'm not keen to meet any aliens at the moment, unless it's at their
dissection. Let’s get back to our ship and get out of here."
"We should get that before we leave," Kukagerrg says.
"But what about your ship?" Verroel asks.
"Later. You might think she can be salvaged, but it doesn't look that way from
above. In the meantime, we need to get you all down to Voenggaks to get checked
out and debriefed."
Character: Fi Khong, Verroel
NPC: Kukagerrg, Vuedueloghz, Laki Semarkali (on Happy Trails),
Sosazue, Dr. Gvekhs, Dzo
Location: unnamed comet
System: Voenggaks (Windhorn 1738)
Verroel, Kukagerrg, and Dzo are on the bridge, downloading as much of the data
collected on the aliens as possible on to a holocrystal. Verroel expresses
getting a copy of the data, but doesn't state aloud that he intends to sell it
to academics, governments, or whomever might be interested in it.
Fi is with Gvekhs, Vued, and Sosazue in the low berth room. They're discussing
what to do about Oragrengouz. There are three courses of action: 1) Cut a hole
in the ship to remove the entire low berth module without disturbing the
patient, 2) Revive him, place him in a vacc suit, and bring him back to Happy
Trails, or 3) Leave him behind for the system navy to extract him (They
should be here within the hour).
Fi points to Oragrengouz and asks, "How badly is he hurt?"
Gvekhs sighs, then says, "Not entirely sure. One of the alien's proboscises was
in direct contact with his head. Verroel shot that alien, but Oragrengouz was in
a catatonic state. Before they could drag him back up here, he started moving
over to a locked iris valve—there were more aliens on the other
side—presumably to unlock it. Verroel hit him in the head with the butt
of his rifle, rendering him unconscious. We put him in here before he regained
consciousness."
"I'm sure I've got something that will keep him unconscious until I can check
him out more thoroughly."
Verroel is listening in to the conversation in the low berth room while waiting
for the data download to finish. At the suggestion that Oragrengouz might have
to be left behind, he says, "We'll not leave a packmate. Cut a hole in the hull
and take him out whole.
"We should also salvage what else is easily taken before the system navy gets
here."
Fi asks, "Do we even have anything that will cut through a ship’s hull, besides
a ship's laser?"
Vued replies, "We have a laser cutting torch over on Happy Trails. It
would take a while, but we could do it. The system navy might be here first, in
which case their wolves could help speed things up."
Fi shakes his head dismissively. "I'm a doctor, I could try reviving him rather
than wasting all that time trying to cut through the hull."
"Oh, and I'm chopped liver," Gvekhs says, his paws in fists on his hips in a
defiant stance. "Do you really have to rub my snout in it after all these
years?"
"You know I was always better than you. No rubbing involved," Fi smiles.
Gvekhs curses under his breath.
Verroel's tail wags as he laughs at the bickering.
"Still, bringing him out unconscious is still a lot quicker than chopping holes
in the hull. Less time for the aliens to come back."
"That settles it," Kukagerrg says.
Verroel asks Kukagerrg, "Is waiting around for the local navy an issue?"
"No, not at all," he replies, "unless you expect the air to run out."
"Even without using the batteries to power up the CO2 exchanger, we're good for
a few hours."
Dzo announces, "I'm downloading the data onto a holocrystal."
"Make two more copies," Kukagerrg says, "one for Verroel and one for the navy."
"Got it."
Fi has gathered all the equipment he thinks he's going to need from his medkit.
"Ok, I'm going to start the revival process." He monitors the readouts on the
berth as he initiates the procedure. Oragrengouz's vitals slowly return to
normal as the cycle proceeds along. The one curious reading comes from the EEG,
which measures brain waves. This reading seems abnormal for vargr, nothing life
threatening, but curious nonetheless.
After the cycle procedure has completed, the berth opens. Fi leans in to apply
a sedative to keep Oragrengouz unconscious, but before he can do so,
Oragrengouz's eyes open. His pupils have dilated to the full extent of his
irises. He grabs Fi's wrist before he inject him with the sedative. As he rises,
he forces Fi's arm into a painful angle, causing him to gasp in pain.
Gvekhs reaches over to try and break Oragrengouz's grip, but Oragregouz punches
him in the snout with his free hand, sending him reeling backwards. Sosazue is
yelling, "Stop it!" at Oragregouz while Vued raises his autopistol, points it at
Oragrengouz's face, and orders him to let Fi go.
Over on the bridge, Verroel and Kukagerrg hear the commotion, exchange looks of
concern, and take off down the hall to the low berth room. Verroel growls as he
runs down to the low berth room, drawing his pistol as he does so. They arrive
momentarily to see things for themselves. Verroel growls again at the scene
before him.
Fi drops the syringe and twists into a slightly less painful position.
Oragregouz opens his mouth to speak, but his voice is not his own. "You must
join us. Together, we can bring about the Master's return."
Verroel steps into the room and to the side of Vued so as to not spoil his aim.
He raises his pistol and replies, "Release our companion. Tell us about the
Master and how we may join him."
Oragregouz releases Fi, whereupon Gvekhs drags him a few meters away. He
promptly whips out a medscanner and uses it to scan Fi's arm. He doesn't seem to
notice the blood dripping from his snout from where Oragregouz punched him.
Fi retrieves a handkerchief with his free hand and holds it to Gvekhs' snout.
"Can't have you bleeding on me or the floor, someone might slip."
Oragregouz addresses Verroel. "Use the key to open the gate. Once you have done
so, the Master will join us in this realm and bring the faithful that we may
spread the Master's wisdom far and wide."
Verroel is doubtful but recognizes that something definitely happened in Jump
Space. "What is the key, Oragregouz? Where did the masters go when we came out
of Jump Space? Did they return to their space?"
"The being by that name no longer exists, and there is but one Master. We will
be here soon. All will be revealed."
Before Verroel can reply, Laki's voice comes in over the comm. "Hey guys.
Sensors are picking up some kind of dust storm heading this way. Well, I think
it's a dust storm. It could be a mobile debris field. Sensors are kinda
confused. It's switching back and forth between the two conclusions. Anyway,
it's heading right for us at about 10 kph. Should be here in about ten minutes.
Sorry for the short notice. It just appeared out of nowhere."
"Dust storm? Mobile debris field?" Verroel growls at the timing of it all.
Kukagerrg says, "Laki, fire up the radar. Tell me what you see."
"Uh, I don't know how to do that."
Kukagerrg growls slightly off comm. "Then ask the computer to do it."
"Ok." There's a pause while everyone waits for the results. "Uh, the computer
says that it can't identify what's coming towards us. It's not rocks or vehicles
of any kind. That's weird. It says that there's a 30% chance it's organic. And
the...EM detector says that it's detecting some kind of signal from whatever it
is. 8 minutes."
Kukagerrg says, "Verroel, we have to get out of here now. Sosazue, Gvekhs, Dzo,
zip up your suits. We're leaving."
Gvekhs makes sure Fi is ok—he is—before making his way to the door
to go find his helmet. Sosazue is already on her way.
Fi wags his tail to indicate he's ok, then zips up his suit.
Kukagerrg follows Gvekhs down the hall.
Verroel growls. "No time to lose! Run to the ship as if the wolves of space are
after you. This could be the Masters coming back for us. There is no way this
is natural."
Fi cuts and runs and is followed by Vued, who keeps his pistol trained on
Oragregouz until he's out the door.
Verroel is the last one in the room.
Before he goes, Oragregouz says, "You have the key, Verroel. So long as you
possess it, we will not stop until it is ours. Join us, and we will open the
gate for the Master. Xe will reward you."
Verroel bolts out of the room and races to the airlock.
Character: Fi Khong, Verroel
NPC: Kukagerrg, Vuedueloghz, Laki Semarkali (on Happy Trails),
Sosazue, Dr. Gvekhs, Dzo
Location: unnamed comet
System: Voenggaks (Windhorn 1738)
Fi reaches the airlock where the rest of the group are waiting to leave. Vued is
right behind him.
"Where's Verroel?" Kukagerrg asks.
"He was right behind me," Vued says.
Five seconds later, Verroel reaches the airlock. It's a little cramped with
everyone inside, but there isn't time for multiple airlock cycles.
It seems like the airlock takes forever to cycle the air out, but it only takes
a minute. An emergency evacuation could send the airlock door flying into
Happy Trails or propel someone from the airlock face first into a rock.
Dzo, Gvekhs, Sosazue, and Fi are on the sled with Fi driving. Vued, Verroel, and
Kukagerrg are putting their Zero-G skills to the test, racing behind the sled.
Verroel wants to howl and beat his head against the rocks of the icy comet at
the insanity of what he's been through, and even worse: what is boiling through
space behind them. NOTHING should be able to do what these things are doing! Yet
the instinct to live is strong and old habits kick in as he moves across the
moon as quickly as he can.
Laki's voice comes over the comm, "Holy Celestial Court! Wuh-wuh-what is that?"
"It's insanity, Laki. Insanity! Get the ship ready to depart. There will be no
time!" he pants in a voice hoarse with effort and probably more than a little
high pitched from the shear unreality of the situation.
The alarm in Laki's voice distracts an already tense Fi. He can't help but look
over his shoulder and, in doing so, bumps the grav sled into a boulder, sending
Sosazue flying off and killing most of the sled's momentum.
Verroel gasps as Sosazue falls and the sled slows.
Fi stops the sled. He sees Sosazue slow to get up, so he barks at Dzo and Gvekhs
to give her a hand. While they're helping her, he looks over his shoulder,
safely this time. He sees a debris cloud several meters high advancing upon
them. There are grey things with wings at the forefront of the cloud. His brain
struggles to make sense of what he's seeing. Nothing should be able to fly in
vacuum.
Besides the wings, the other details are still difficult to make out at this
range, but Fi thinks he sees pincers tucked in on a cylindrical torso atop a
platform of crab legs. Maybe vaguely K'kree shaped. More like a millipede
rearing up—
"Fi! Let's go!" Gvekhs shouts. It doesn't seem like the first time.
Meanwhile, Verroel and Kukagerrg are making it across the surface without
incident. The grav sled mishap has enabled them to close the gap.
Fi twists the throttle as fast as he dares to accelerate. He remains focused on
the ramp into the cargo bay of the ship, not daring to look back to see if the
alien horde was closing ranks.
As soon as the grav sled is in the cargo bay, he kills the power and hops off,
leaving Gvekhs to tend to Sosazue. He draws his auto-shotgun and jogs across the
bay to the hatch controls. He scarcely notices Dzo standing guard at the other
side of the hatch. In the distance the cloud has reached the wreck, the aliens
leaping over it.
He averts his eyes from the horde and focuses instead on Verroel and Kukagerrg.
"Hurry up!" he shouts, as if the duo needed any extra coaching.
As soon as the pair are on the ramp, Fi hits the 'Close' button. Fi and Dzo
remain on guard even as Verroel and Kukagerrg have made it safely inside. "Come
on. Close faster," Fi mutters, as he keeps his shotgun aimed at the diminishing
gap.
When Verroel finally gets aboard, he runs across to the controls and smacks
the button to start the pressurization cycle. But with the hatch still open,
it will not initiate.
When the hatch closes with a satisfying clunk, Fi releases his breath, not even
realizing that he was holding it.
With the hatch finally closed, Verroel is able to start the air pressurization
cycle so that they can leave the cargo bay.
While they wait, he says, "Those things are big! Let's hope the hull will hold
until we can get into space."
Next: Desperate to Lift Off