The Omen of Death
My presence has marked your eventual demise.
You are sitting in the pilot's chair of the starship Andromeda, on the edge of the Protherus star system, getting ready to make a Light Space Jump to your freighter's next destination. You hear a sound, like someone gasping in surprise, and look up from your console. Your co-pilot, Karl, is looking intently at his console, and doesn't seem to have heard anything unusual. You must have imagined the sound, for you and Karl are the only two people aboard this starship.
"Jump calculations are complete," Karl says to you, sitting in the co-pilots seat beside yours.
Before you, the transparent plasglass windows of the cockpit provide a view of the stars. Space stretches on infinitely before you. Directly in the middle of your foreward view, a star shines brighter than the others - it is your destination, the closest star to the star system you are currently in.
"Preparing to Jump to Light Space," you say, mentally going through your pre-jump checklist, as you press buttons and flick switches to the correct settings. You feel the ship beginning to vibrate as the interstellar propulsion system powers up, ready to activate.
"Activating LSJD," you say, pressing the final button. There is the usual flash of white light, and...
...
You are sitting in your pilot's chair, in the cockpit of the Andromeda, and something is not quite right. Outside the windows, the darkness of space is gone, there is only light. You raise your arm to cover your eyes, but as you do, the light pales. Instead of searing your eyes like a thousand suns, the endless expanse of white outside the windows gives off a soft light, like looking at a white plaster wall that someone is shining a torch on.
As your eyes adjust to this strange phenomena, you hear a gasping, gurgling sound from behind you. Glancing to one side, you see the strangest thing. The right hand half of the cockpit is stretched out before and behind you. Your co-pilot, his chair and console, are now lines and blobs of horizontal colour, stretching through the room in streaks, like a motion-blurred, time-lapse photograph!
Your head goes dizzy as your eyes and brain try to make sense of what it is you are seeing, then suddenly the strange warping of space stops, and the entire cockpit looks normal and whole once more. However, your co-pilot, his body restored to its correct physical form, sags forward in his chair, held up by his chest-crossing seatbelt buckle. Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth as his head drops forward, staring sightlessly down at his console.
Outside the ship, the pale light - the endless expanse of whiteness instead of the blackness of space - tells you that something is horribly wrong here.
1. Examine Karl's body.
2. Bring up a ship damage report on your console, and try to find out what is wrong with the ship.
3. Check the ship's sensors, and see what it can detect.
"Jump calculations are complete," Karl says to you, sitting in the co-pilots seat beside yours.
Before you, the transparent plasglass windows of the cockpit provide a view of the stars. Space stretches on infinitely before you. Directly in the middle of your foreward view, a star shines brighter than the others - it is your destination, the closest star to the star system you are currently in.
"Preparing to Jump to Light Space," you say, mentally going through your pre-jump checklist, as you press buttons and flick switches to the correct settings. You feel the ship beginning to vibrate as the interstellar propulsion system powers up, ready to activate.
"Activating LSJD," you say, pressing the final button. There is the usual flash of white light, and...
...
You are sitting in your pilot's chair, in the cockpit of the Andromeda, and something is not quite right. Outside the windows, the darkness of space is gone, there is only light. You raise your arm to cover your eyes, but as you do, the light pales. Instead of searing your eyes like a thousand suns, the endless expanse of white outside the windows gives off a soft light, like looking at a white plaster wall that someone is shining a torch on.
As your eyes adjust to this strange phenomena, you hear a gasping, gurgling sound from behind you. Glancing to one side, you see the strangest thing. The right hand half of the cockpit is stretched out before and behind you. Your co-pilot, his chair and console, are now lines and blobs of horizontal colour, stretching through the room in streaks, like a motion-blurred, time-lapse photograph!
Your head goes dizzy as your eyes and brain try to make sense of what it is you are seeing, then suddenly the strange warping of space stops, and the entire cockpit looks normal and whole once more. However, your co-pilot, his body restored to its correct physical form, sags forward in his chair, held up by his chest-crossing seatbelt buckle. Blood trickles from the corners of his mouth as his head drops forward, staring sightlessly down at his console.
Outside the ship, the pale light - the endless expanse of whiteness instead of the blackness of space - tells you that something is horribly wrong here.
1. Examine Karl's body.
2. Bring up a ship damage report on your console, and try to find out what is wrong with the ship.
3. Check the ship's sensors, and see what it can detect.