Futuristic Silent Stars

[Trashler]

The Odessa was quite surprised by the voice. Usually people didn't acknowledge them on fuel refills. V1 turned around and studied the person who had spoken. A cybernetic human, and a highly advanced one at that. V1 had never seen one in person, and thought of the technology as primitive compared to his own, but still marvelous none the less. "I apologize for not seeing you earlier. I'm Odessa V1. We're not here to cause any trouble. We just need some fuel for our ship, and some supplies as well. We have a passenger count of 12, including myself, but you probably already knew that." Odessa spoke, rather cautionary. He could instruct the others to come out and circle the two in front, but he chose not to.
The other Odessa's were practically itching to go out and protect their leader, though he did not permit it. V1 didn't like the aggressive tone himself, but he still enlightened the thought. Everyone seemed to be in a panicked state on the ship, well except for V3. He was staring at the native. It was a cybernetic human, and a good looking one too. Finally someone worth his romantic talent. The posthuman was quite the optic show for V3. "Elle est comme une fleur dans le vent éternel de la beauté. I have found my femme" The bot spoke, sighing.

Dano @Mx.Silent Natealie Vulpes

 

[Giyari]

Mood: Hopeful

Location: Outer Norma Arm, Ice Rings of a Gas giant.

Company: Mr Frosty

@'s: Quillicious Tardy Grade

Other: -

Hyperspace phased out of sight almost as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Nash's ship careering towards the ice belts of a massive green and yellow gas giant. This was just what she needed. A large enough block of ice from the rings could give her enough water for another month, well once it was filtered anyway. And if she let the heat from the ships thrusters vent into the cargo bay she could even keep the temperature stable... well that was the plan anyway.


Scanning the floating chunks in front of her ship, Nash looked for a rock big enough to harvest. For a larger ship like a freighter any one would do, for a large fighter class like the Corvid however, well there was only so much room in her converted bomb bay.

"Right. That one? No.. Ah that one!" she muttered to herself as she glanced at various prospective blocks before settling on a choice.

Without any hesitation Nash unclipped her harness and wriggled free of the straps. The weightlessness of zero G becoming apparent as she floated through her ships cockpit towards the cargo bay. She had to prepare for opening the bomb doors she used to transfer cargo, had to make sure all her supplies were secure. Thankfully the only stuff not tied down or in boxes was an old change of clothes she had thrown top the side the other day. It didn't take long to pack the garments into a hold.

"Okay lets do this."

Pushing off a wall, Nash brought herself back into the cockpit as the hiss of the door sealed the only bulkhead on the ship behind her and pumped the hold's air out in prep for the opening doors. She quickly strapped herself down, a smile gracing her face as she grabbed the flight controls and throttled up on approach to the ice brick.

A few delicate movements brought her ship parallel with the ice. The belly of the Corvid opened slowly, engulfing the ice and closing in one movement, like a fish lazily eating a scrap of food floating through the water.

"Yessssss. Perfect!" Nash shouted, congratulating herself for a job well done. Now she only needed to pack the ice into a container, bring the temperature back to normal, and make the damn stuff drinkable... It would be a bit of work, but it was better than dying of thirst.

 

[Vulpes]

Jack took a position opposite Julie in the ship, slouched on the floor against a wall watching her. His knees were bent and his feet just in front of him as he leaned against the wall. He was looking at the ceiling with his helmet was cradled in his left hand and his bag propped against his right side. Jack cautiously slid his computer out of his bag and quickly set up a holographic workspace floating before his face as the computer was between his legs. His face looked both strained and confident as his hands adeptly typed the floating blue keyboard. Jack intended to intercept any signals or news on what had happened, it was still so weird, it couldn't have been a gas or something because even people in space had died. Jack still felt relatively alone even among his new acquaintances, he was convinced that they were incompatible with him, they all seemed nice enough, but he didn't feel himself gravitating towards them. After receiving nothing Jack sighed and turned his watch back on, having another conversation with Sam, he whispered quietly to him, muttering about what had happened since his last talk.
"Yeah I charged onto the station shouting about my situation and made them all feel awkward as anything." he whispered as he chuckled
"why? What if they get pissed off and dump you or something?" the watch quietly replied, clearly realizing Jack wanted privacy.
"Worth it for their faces." Jack muttered, his eyes now set on Julie as she shouted and swung her arms around. Strange... He thought, this seemed completely different to her more dignified mannerism that he'd experience earlier, maybe she would be fun, with whatever that drink was at least. His head was slightly tilted, he knew she wouldn't hear anything he said seeing as he could hear the drum beats emanating from the ancient headphones over her head. Jack was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to speak to her.

Jack discontinued staring at Julie through his transparent holographic display and packed his computer back away after having made minor changes to Sam and using it mostly to look productive. Jack stood up once more and shouldered his bag, heading into the cockpit to watch as they deorbited, enjoying the upcoming view whilst trying to look for signs of activity. Jack returned to the ship's door as it opened, he quickly sprinted out but was stopped. He was confronted by two women, one who he knew, the other a stranger to him.

Jack smiled at Xi, "if you take out our thrusters your warranty's gone" He chuckled. "Nice to see you, everyone seemingly disappeared and I am a bit lost so I stuck with these formal and polite robots" Jack winked at V1. "greetings aside, do you know if there's anywhere I can wash up?"

Natealie @Mx.Silent Trashler Dano

 

[Snorble211]

"How long am I gonna have to put up with this shit?" Zintosh muttered to himself. He lowered the firearm from his face to inspect it. Another serial number, another worthless 15 minutes mindlessly passed. Hundreds of numbers and letters occupied his mind, keeping it from contemplating his minuscule probability of survival. He swiveled around to offer yet another sacrifice to his mountain of tedium. Everything he did had become monotonous. Robotic, even. Day after day, nothing changed. Once again, he pondered his predicament. He chuckled solemnly to himself. "What a jo-"

The blare of his dashboard cut him off before he could finish. Something was actually happening. Interaction with anything had almost become foreign to him. He considered what the alarm could be for. The uncertainty dug deep and, as little as he wanted to admit it, it worried him. This could be bad. But, he reminded himself, as long as it wasn't anything hostile or a malfunction, there was no reason to worry. Those were decent odds, right?

He hesitated before turning back around. A simple message took up the largest screen on his dash. "SAVE PARKER", followed by coordinates. It certainly wasn't bad news, but Zintosh wasn't sure what to make of it. He didn't know how long it had been drifting through space. If 'Parker' had sent the message weeks ago, was she still alive? Was this some sort of trap? He wasn't willing to let this opportunity slip away. If Parker was still out there, Zintosh would find her. His fingers darted over the console as he copied the coordinates. He had missed having a destination. He had never been one to wander, he had never simply drifted away. Yet now, he knew exactly where he was going.

He had been given purpose. The coordinates were set, and he prepared for the worst. Although, he wasn't sure how his current situation could get worse. It mattered little to him. He was going to save Parker or die trying. Those were the two best outcomes, after all. With a few more buttons pressed and the last of his mental preparation, his ship began its jump sequence. He silently prayed that Parker hadn't drifted too far from the coordinates that were sent or met her end. The last thing he wanted was to throw disappointment on top of grief. All that was left was to wait. 'It's over...' He thought. 'I'm on my way, Parker."

Within moments, he blinked off the path he followed for three long weeks. Before he jumped away, he was relieved to leave such desolate space behind. He didn't even know where he had been. He was happy to break such a bleak cycle. He only hoped that Parker could still be saved.

ManicMuse

 

[Lyro]

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The wait was physically painful to Revrin. This was no exaggeration borne out of impatience - the anguish and uncertainty caused by contradictory potentials were substantially heating up portions of his circuitry in their bid for dominance over his actions. The result was the robotic equivalent of a headache, as no single process was able to take hold of his mind for more than a few milliseconds before it was discarded. In an attempt to distract himself, he found himself fidgeting aimlessly with the pieces of equipment scattered around his ship - most of them souvenirs from the various places he had been too over the years - and occasionally clenching and unclenching his staff's handle.

"This is the Blue Solstice and the Ibn Battua. We got your broadcast, we're here to help."

Having learned nothing from the previous message fragment, Revrin jerked upright, hit his head on the ship's ceiling again and scrambled to re-position himself to look out both of the ship's portholes. Still nothing... but then the ship might have been light seconds away, too distant to be spotted, yet close enough that communications were possible. Feeling a new burst of energy (in a very literal sense, as the wasted processor power was transferred over to more useful functions), Revrin floated to the front of his ship and plugged himself into the ship's comms for direct access.

The voice had spoken standard Uni//2, the galaxy's lingua franca and the product of one of the few truly successful pan-galactic collaborations. There were local variants, of course, though the message has been so short Revrin had not been able to identify any relevant clues. The accent has been distinctly Pleiadan, however; possibly Calaenolese, even Electran, certainly not Alcyonian. As for the "Blue Solstice" name, not much could be gleaned from that, but it sounded like something people from the Seven Sisters would come up with. Not a very military sounding name, either - not that that meant much in an era where many civilizations chose to give whimsical names to the deadliest of fleets.

As for the... the Ib And Batwa? That name was completely foreign to him, but it was good to know at least two ships had survived the event. Had they been together at the time? Or had they chanced upon each other too? Such a narratively convenient coincidence had seemed implausible, but so had the entirety of humanity going quiet.

He was doing it again. Wasting cycles on work when he was supposed to be on holiday. When he was supposed to be answering his rescuer. Reset. Calm. Collected. Measured. Then, respond, serenely.

He flicked a switch and replied.

"Thank you thank you thank you oh so much please hurry!" he all but shouted.

Harmalite Mr.Sandstorm

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

The Pleaides
Vega System
Private Vessel "Ibn Battuta"
Harmalite Lyro
(blink blonk blink blonk)

While the vessel blinked trough hyperspace, Fernon speculated on the nature of his distress caller. He was robotic, that much was obvious, but centuries of journey had already presented him with a massive sample of types and populations from the robotic community.
He was now long stripped of the uneducated notion that all synthetics somehow fit into the same stereotypical niche that the majority of human folklore knew and loved; the faceless, emotionless, hiveminded drones that wish nothing more than process everything that is into computronium.
The needleship definitely sugested an individualized, self-suficient entity, but even yet there was room for variation. Possibly an r-type, but which? Or maybe it was a cyborg? A Post-human? An e-person?

Fernon couldnt help but keep this inquiry cooking in his head while the two ships were in transit. As they arrived, he left it to drift away and began tracking his third friend with his scanners. He could feel the subtle push against his chair as the RCS made only enough thrust to sculp it's trajectory towards the planetoid glowing in the dim light of the remote stars of Vega System. The Ibn was now in a perfectly circular orbit, perhaps sugesting to it's pilot further adjustments for a docking procedure.

It came rather suddently to his ears when the oddly harmonic flux of (unexpectedly) emotional plea words arrived on his end.
"Thank you thank you thank you oh so much please hurry!"
Kansh took a while to proccess it. He gave a meekly impressed look at the lazily enlarging dot on his screen displaying the needleship.
"Reploid". Not quite what he expected. He in fact never met a Reploid before, as they were known for being rather rare amongst the r-community. Most synthetics usualy want to "rise" from the lowly condition of human life, not be one with it.

He swept it aside. Organic, synthetic or any inbetween, it needed help. His comm. channel was already set on the needleship's frequency.
"Dont worry, we'll be there. Just make sure your ship doesnt detonate before we can get you out of it, okay?"
"......not that we're going to get rid of it, if that's not what you want, of course. Just uh, hang tight."
He switched over to the Solstice:
"Well, you might have noticed my ship isnt much suited for salvaging other ships, so I'm going to have to leave this for you." He glanced at his navigation screen, eyeing the sugestive circular orbit that his ship made, almost as if expecting an orbital intercept.
He centered his attention on the navigation screen; the chase was over, but there were still many retrograde burns to be made.

"Well, I could still close in on the needleship with you, if you'll need any EVA assistance. For now, let's be quick; orbital tagging can take a lot of time, and we might not have much of it."

 

[welian]

Rottweiler

This month was a bad month for Rottweiler. The port authority was hot on the tail of her and her cronies, so they split up – divide and conquer, sort of, except instead of conquering, they were hoping that only a few of them would be caught, if any.

"Captain, you need to take a look at this. We have a cruiser nearby. Not seeing any activity from it."

Rottweiler looked up from where she had been pacing in circles for nearly three days, in a small open part of the ship that was normally reserved for a folding table and a deck of cards. The table was folded away and stashed in the cargo hold. At least, it was if their mechanical “friend” hadn’t yet destroyed it in his petulant tantrums. And, like Bailey, Rottweiler had also opted for a casual no-pants look. It was just a shame the second-hand smoke wasn’t enough to calm her fraying nerves.

“Oh, thank fuck!” Rarely was she so openly expressive, she was certain that Bailey had seen more of her – mentally, emotionally, physically – than any other crewmember of the Vulture had in years. The diminutive woman sprinted up to the cockpit, nearly climbing on top of her teenaged protégé to get a look at something that wasn’t the blank void of space.

"MOVE CLOSER. I WANT TO EXERCISE." Rottweiler ignored the nuisance that she had unaffectionally dubbed Jiggles.

“A damned cruiser, see if you can get a visual on a hatch. I’ll get my armor on and we’ll – what the fuck?”

She squinted. That was definitely blood. She’d seen a lot of blood in her life, but not quite in this context, and that was unnerving.

“…. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right Jiggles. You need to exercise soon, otherwise you’ll get fat and lazy. Then I won’t be able to sell you for parts for insubordination. Bailey…”

Aw, hell, she wasn’t going to make the girl drive through a freaky blood rain. She liked her too much for that.

“… Go bring me my armor and the machine gun. I’ll mount, and Jiggles will do his thing. And then we’ll take what we need and leave. Food, ammunition, batteries, smokes, the usual.”

Hopefully, leave without the metal monstrosity, since she didn’t need it or its goddamned constant taping that was driving her fucking insane with every dollar in bodywork she could hear being flushed out the airlock.

D. Rex Zahzi The J Prizzy Kriyze

 

[The Gunrunner]

Tonos Borgh Patherborn, Hellion Station.

Six hours. The captain checks the time in the corner of his HUD one last time to confirm. Six hours and thirteen minutes, to be exact. He was sat by the radio with a team of four others, largely for advisory or technical roles regarding the mission and radio. It was a little unnecessary, but he wanted to be sure. Things were progressing slowly, but progress was there. He almost heard a sigh of relief from everyone when the forward teams confirmed control over the station's systems. He looks over to the airlock - A medical team stands by the door. They were seeing to some of the... well, they weren't survivors anymore. They were brought in a few minutes ago, far past mere 'critical condition.' They weren't trying to keep them alive - that objective was long past - but now they pressed needles into their arms, rubbed their skins in types of pastes and mixtures, connecting them to mobile pieces of machinery, trying to preserve them for autopsy. The procedure was infront of the others - Though there was discomfort from the non-medical staff, it had to be done as quickly as possible.

Inside, Alpha opens their comms to Bravo and the captain. They've finally reached the Barracks. The plaque indicating the room shined against the mounted lights of rifles and helmets, hopefully suggesting some answers to this mystery. Alpha's sergeant had a tone of urgent excitement as he reports in: "The barracks, sir. We're there. We'll have to disconnect ourselves from the radio if we're keeping these doors intact.
"Understood, Alpha. Proceed."
The men were nervous. They'd have to go in on their own while Bravo stays behind, with no verbal connection to the ship, the other squads, or each other. There wasn't much choice though. They position themselves to enter, waiting for the room to depressurize; there were two sets for use, meaning there was a means of using a makeshift airlock. A makeshift airlock, though, tends to either be shoddy or tedious to use. The latter was the case; the engineer in the bottom level of the station clears the in-between space of air, depressurizing it as needed. Bravo opens the doorway for Alpha, who silently pull themselves inside. They drift past the entrance, which is soon closed behind them. The engineer nods when he hears his order, and presses a button to flood the space back in with air. As alpha's surroundings are made livable again, the final doorway into the Barracks is made open. Mere seconds used in their breach, they push themselves in before the minute has passed.

Alpha keeps themselves focused on the area - The room is bathed in the station's lighting, making the scene easily visible; bodies, emaciated as before, wrapped in blankets, some bouncing from the walls in zero G. There were some who lied in their beds with their fingers clutched into their hair, holding their heads - Others had their arms outstretched, and their blankets pushed to their legs as if they were trying to crawl away. All the while, their audio receivers filled their ears with a consistent, loud static. The only alternative from that was the erratic, loud breathing of all the unconscious crew. "What the fuck happened here?" one asks in disbelief, the speaker in his helmet delivering a crackled recreation of human speech. Their sergeant extends his fingers and swipes them over the 'mouth' of his helmet, signing they shut it. "Search room" he signs... That is, he tries to. As he formulates a rough, simple search pattern, he feels a pressure around his head. Something slight, but noticeable, and growing quickly. As he tries to sign for men to pull security on the forward corners, the signing breaks and he instinctively brings a palm to his head. The pain wasn't serious, but... it wasn't subsiding. It kept growing around his cranium, refusing to decline. Others tried to pull themselves along, but they felt it too. Movements were stiff or distracted, palms pressing or rubbing against helmets to simulate what one would do for relief.

The sergeant shakes his head and forces his hand away, looking up. The scene infront of him is meaningless - They checked the bodies and corners, but- no. One man suddenly flashes his weapon to the side, scanning over an empty space of the floor. Another man does the same, though keeps his weapon poised. Some comrades looked in the same place - Nothing. But the man kept his weapon aimed. "Wh- what in the black?" The sergeant's head grew worse and worse. He looks at the bodies, his men. Something wasn't right. His subconscious finally tried to rationalize the collective anomaliesof the scene - Those in their beds, breathing erratically. Fingers wrapped around their heads, men trying to crawl away. The two with their insistent attentions in empty spaces. The pressure becomes overpowering, and he tries to yell to the others: "Back outside!" A small few look back questioningly, three or four. The rest remain where they are. He quickly grabs part of a bed post to push himself along, reaching out to grab one of the non-respondants.
"Now!"
He grips the man's shoulder, shaking him for his attention. The man doesn't respond. His fingers release him, and the soldier, active just moments ago, limply drifts towards the wall.
The static and erratic breathing fill his helmet, the latter especially as his own panicing breaths are added to it. He was sweating underneath, his heart thumping with adrenaline pumped through his veins. His head felt like someone was trying to crush it. He leaves his man, frantically reaching out to grab hold of the prior post and pull himself back to the airlock. His feet and hands grip and bump against everything from bodies, to blankets, to trinkets. The few alive, if those others can be called dead, have wasted no time opening the first layer door to their makeshift airlock. Their sergeant plants his feet against one of the side-lockers, pain bringing him to the brink of passing out. In a last-ditch effort, he pushes himself off in a desperate leap out of the room.
The door is shut behind him.

Bravo can't help but be confused as the soldiers shine their lights through the windows through the inner airlock door - "Let us out" is signed in view. Bravo opens their comms to their engineer: "There's been a problem. Engineer, close the Barracks door and open the way for them here." He hears an affirmative on the other end, and the barracks door closes in view. As the airlock slowly depressurizes, those few survivors from Alpha... slowly lose their energy. Their hands slam back to their helmets, thrashing erratically as their fists pound against the thick glass of the door. One of them drifts limply in place, neither thrashing or pounding. Another of them slowly ceases his violent reactions, as if dying inside his suit, and drifts out of view curled in the fetal position.
"In the name of the fucking Black, get them out of there!"
The engineer furrows his brow, frantically looking over the controls before responding: "Sir, the room isn't depressurized yet. Fifteen seconds."

Bravo watches helplessly as Alpha thrashes in place. The air inside is slowly sucked away, but the bodies go limp far before the fifteen seconds required. By the time the doors open, there's not one energetic soul to pull himself out. Bravo watches in disbelief, their squad lead as well. There's a long moment of silence before he opens his comms back to the ship, signalling for men to move the bodies. "Sir, Alpha's down."

"Repeat, Bravo?"

"Alpha is down. There's only four here, the rest are still in the barracks."

"Move in to resecure, Bravo."

"Would advise an alternative, sir; cause of... present status is unknown. No wounds to the armour are noted, no signs of a firefight, and no visible hostiles."

There's pause on the other end. Alpha's limp bodies are pulled away to comparitive safety. Their transporters are waved away, and they carry the men through the halls back to Charlie's location. The captain's voice comes through again, his tone calm and professional, though behind the transmitter he spoke through gritted teeth: "Get back on the ship."

 

[Natealie]

Camilla took a moment to observe the newcomers. A synthetic and an organic, apparently allied. At least, that was what she assumed. Considering that they came out of the same ship, she believed that it was quite the reasonable assumption. She scanned them as well, cross-referencing them with her database of people who had done business with the Collective in the past. As expected, there was nothing. She did not feel remorse for scanning them though. after all, the synthetic had likely already done so to her. Despite all of this though, they were being quite upfront and reasonable. She was not opposed to helping them, but had to go through the usual first.

"Well in that case welcome to Veles on behalf of The Abraxus Compound. Before I continue though I need you to agree to keep the location of this planet, my organization, and what we do here secret. Can you promise me that?" Camilla asked them. They did not look like criminals, which was ironically the most dangerous thing about them. Not that law even existed after the end of the universe, but it helped to be safe.

Dano Trashler Vulpes

 

[ManicMuse]

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Parker

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

Scene Details

Location: Cargo room of personal ship

State of being:

Nearby: Snorble211

OOC:

Small group @: Lyro Harmalite Mr.Sandstorm

The few more days slipped by in near silence. Parker had found in the years that had passed, it was rather hard to keep oneself busy, when in the company of such solitude. Tinkering and staring at the walls only did so much these days. After a few hours of laying in one of the many hallways in the ship, Parker considered what to do next. There was always a shower, if one could call it that. It was more of a dust bath and quite uncomfortable given the current temperature of the ship.

"No dust for me cold. Cold-ness seeps into my bone. Seeps too deep and I go cold forever too."

Climbing up to her feet, Parker wandered the corridors of the ship. Slowly her pace only once approaching the room, where he was. Lightly stepping, the form hidden in clothing leaned in to the room, only just. Her red orbs locked on the form of him. White now tarnished with grease and dust. His body was no longer resembling a humanoid form. Bits and parts of what once was him, now hung about in disarray.

Parker watched him closely, studying the various pieces, expecting them to move. Once her feet started to go numb, she shuffled forward into the room. Carefully, weaving through the bits, she made her way to the back of the storage room. Collecting a new filter for the waste system. Grabbing hold of the larger filter she heaved it on to her shoulder and attempted to rush out.

Pointless maintenance of the ship would have to do for entertainment. By the time she made it to the cargo bay, Parker nearly toppled over setting the filter down. Recovering her stance, she reached up and peeled back several layers of fabric. Wiping away the sweat that had collected on her brow.

Shrugging off layers of clothing, jackets and sweaters, Parker headed toward what was once her personal quarters. There in a darkened corner of the room, it sat. After climbing down the ladder to the room, she reached out to the blackened suit and powered it on. While it ran the boot up sequence, Parker reached up, grasping the shoulder of the armor. Hoisting her petite frame up into the behemoth, she slid both feet into legs. Nestled safe inside, Parker pulled on the helmet. Disappearing into the mechanic exoskeleton.

Little did Parker know, that something or someone was approaching her floating life raft of a ship.

 

[Tardy Grade]

Rery walked around the inside of the ship trying to keep herself busy. Pacing every which way in the zero gravity using her mag boots to burn off some energy.The lack of work to do and orders to give were getting to her. After she'd been more or less bought by GURREN she had never had a moment's rest. Every moment became a privilege she'd earned based on her own merit. By being better than her peers, less rebellious and more dedicated. By attracting the attention of powerful men and women who sought to use her and the others for purposes they never understood. In a game of chess they only got to know of when their program was shut down. And her and the others were shuffled off to the far reached of space where they would be forgotten in due time. These thoughts got her mind spiraling ...

It reminded her of Jupiter ...
________________________________________________________________________________

"We are exiting the training phase and returning to base." An examiner on a small hovering platform spoke to the crowd of children

"ETA to Jupiter station?" A synthetic voice asked.

"Ten minutes to the outskirts of Sol system, sixty-three minutes at our current heading to Jupiter station."

"Okay, you're with me to the ready room, Janus. Arthur, you have the bridge."

"Aye, Sir," Arthur and Janus answered in unison and the examiner followed him off the bridge.

"Progress has been good thus far with the current batch," Janus started without preamble, as soon as the door had closed behind them. "With any luck we can have then dropped off to complete the fifth stage of their training."

"Any impressive candidates?" The mystery figure asked, seeing that Janus seemed about as puffed as a Garnian Peacock..

"Yes. More than four of them show a high level of acceptance for the procedures with almost no rejections. The research has proved that post-natal cell fate therapy is possible if w-."

"I understand. I will assess them." he said getting annoyed.

"I hope you won't deprive me of my star pupils too early, Sir." Janus said. "That is still my job for the time being. Yours remains to provide a recommendation to continue my resea-"

"You think to tell me my role?" The man paused and turned slightly to eye the ramrod man who hovered an inch above him. The man's expression was unchanged but tiny beads of perspiration gave his state away.

"No, I don't," Janus tried to calm his superior. "But our research has been unable to provide any major breakthroughs in decades before now. If our division was able to show these results, we'd stand out a bit, wouldn't you say?"

"Indeed. I can understand you enthusiasm," They resumed moving once he conceded on the point.

_______________________________________________________________________________

A younger Rery entered her class room quietly even as the other children were boisterous about the surprise guest who was supposed to be coming.

"Hey Rery," Trip greeted her enthusiastically.

"Hi Trip. There's time for the pleasantries later. What's the skinny?" Rery asked one of the few people she felt comfortable talking with and sat beside him, giving Trip's new rank insignia a cursory glance.

"Like it? Just got promoted." Trip asked Rery with a smug look.

"Yeah. The yellow matches those stains on your bed sheets." Rery sighed. Trip looked like he was about to blow a fuse before a light at the top of the board lit up. The children scampered to their seats and all held their breaths as the light blinked twice and the third blink was met with the opening of the door.

"Hello children." A large man spoke through a visible choker screwed to his throat even as a smile was firmly cemented on his face.

"My name is- "
________________________________________________________________________________

"Rery you've been quiet for some time. You may be suffering some kind of mental episode. Do you want me to sing for you? I have a wide sele-"

"No, Ai. I'm fine." she said as she looked at the golden insignia on her suit.

"Just fine ..."

Group: Quillicious , Giyari

 

[Prizzy Kriyze]

☣/Kyr☢s "Uranus" Thalia/☣​

"SUFFICIENT DISPLAY OF POWER." Muttered the suit's metallic communication inside Kyros' head as the rolling vibration from his leap caused the girl to stumble and twist with her gun aimed at him, revealing her nervous demeanour. The plasma-combustor purred, repeating tungsten-loaders clicked and the low wheezing of the suit's constantly operating vocal cords mixed into an amalgamy of both fleshy and mechanical sounds that trademarked the Uranus lines' full-fledged combat settings; yet it was still silent enough that nobody much farther away than the rogue would be able to hear it.

Naturally he didn't need all these weapons trained on the stranger, but it was a surrender tactic rather than a form of combat. The Designites may mostly be warriors, but they believed in mercy far more than most armies. Their carefree views of life went both ways, of course. And so, when the girl admitted surrender and relieved herself of her gun, most of the displayed weapons powered down and retracted.

"Step forward and present your hands." The harsh voice of the suit sounded, as it's back straightened slightly to allow two much smaller arms, located closer to it's throat, to move more freely beside it's much larger ones. They reached out towards the girl and opened, palm facing upward, seemingly inviting her to put her hands there. "Did you arrive alone?"

The J

 

[Harmalite]

"Thank you thank you thank you oh so much please hurry!"

Beya was a bit taken aback by the enthusiasm and what was surely glee packed in that robotic voice; it filled him with a warm feeling he realized long ago he hadn't been getting from his previous... work. He couldn't help but chuckle a bit at how wholesome everything was at the moment in a bittersweet sort of way. If anything, he was excited to actually save something for once. The ship approaching in the viewport was nothing like the Void Chaser, no atmosphere of trepidation or the aftertaste of years of preparations to try and prevent exactly what had happened. It was tiny in a serene way, like something from the raygun-gothic stories from ancient Earth, from a time before anyone knew how deadly and unforgiving outer space could be (at least for humans). He lingered on the thought for a moment with a bit of melancholy, and was grateful that this ship was lost in a regular old void.

Tiny... but that was changing fast. Already only seven and a half kilometers away, Beya realized that the close proximity wasn't as convenient as it initially seemed. He glanced at some of the instruments, noting altitude and velocity. The current orbit would have him overshoot the Needleship towards a periapsis in deep space, and if he didn't act quickly it would take days to set up another encounter at any sort of non-destructive speed. That snapped him out of his reminiscing. He broke out into a light sweat as he engaged manual control, and the navigation unit spit out a two-pronged yoke covered in buttons, some of which were still enigmas. The comms lit up again, Beya leaned forwards both to listen and to see over the crowded dash.

"Well, you might have noticed my ship isnt much suited for salvaging other ships, so I'm going to have to leave this for you ... Well, I could still close in on the needleship with you, if you'll need any EVA assistance. For now, let's be quick; orbital tagging can take a lot of time, and we might not have much of it."

"Alright, copy that. I'm going to try not to EVA if I don't have to, but let's see how it goes. It looks like that ship can just barely fit inside the payload bay so i'm going to get close and see if I can get him in. If I need to EVA i'll need you to watch out for debris and stuff, solar flares."

Then he switched over to the Needleship.

"I'll have the payload bay doors open, I think you can fit inside. I'm coming in close for a rendezvous, i'm planetside to you."

He dragged the yoke in front of him, white-knuckled, hard and downwards, prompting the RCS thrusters to eject a luminescent blue haze downwards into the abyss as they forced the ship into a head-over-heels somersault. He'd disengaged artificial gravity in the cockpit for this one; a little nausea was better than blacking out from the G force he was about to get racked with. From above, the planet engulfed the view as the Solstice pitched a full 180; big, riddled with colossal branching canyons and mountains, shrouded in a little bit of atmospheric haze. He wasn't exactly sure which one it was, it was just a nice view, sort of like the one at the top of a roller coaster. Beya clenched his fists, teeth, elsewhere, before opening up the throttle for a retrograde burn.

It was one of those times that space not propagating noise was a blessing, since the vibration of the hull alone was deafening. No neutron flow damping tricks, no cheating with muons, just raw nuclear fusion blasted out the four main thrusters, and he could really feel it. He grimaced as the deceleration pushed him back into the foam of the chair, and struggled to keep the yoke steady until the steep elliptical orbit petered out into something more manageable. Alright, that should have done it. He eased off the throttle. The virtual orbit display on the dash confirmed his mental simulation, and it definitely looked like the interception would be less catastrophic. A sharp tilt of the yoke rolled the ship so that the dorsal payload bay doors faced the needleship, and they began to swing open.

It hung about one kilometer over the ship, approaching with a pleasingly low relative velocity. Through the cameras mounted near the bay, he could see the ship in detail now, and he wondered how anyone, even a robot, could fit in such a claustrophobic tin can of a ship. He considered the possibility that the castaway was the ship itself. Whatever the case may have been, he was somewhat concerned. What if they somehow couldn't their end of the docking procedure? He was ready to think of something, he was certain he'd be able to, but the thought of doing an EVA within a termination shock was somewhat upsetting.

"What's the condition of your reaction controls? Are you... uh, injured in any way?"

Lyro Mr.Sandstorm

 

[Slop]

"Odd... No response..?"
The Archivist shrugged the confusion off of himself as he proceeded to figdet his fingers about the control panel in front of him.

"Hmph.. Computer, how many of them are offline?"

"Calculating... Approximately 73%. Damage presumably critical - manual repair is required."

"Not unexpected, prepare my ship - I shall depart momentarily."

"Checking ship status... Ship is fully fueled and all systems are fully operational - ready for departure."

No time was to be wasted - the Archivist strode out of his observation room and headed straight for his ship hangar in the far back of the databank.

Having to repair or even do anything manually in general was a rare occasion for the Archivist - he was an individual of immense wealth and power, although that isn't to say he's incapable of holding his own or getting his hands dirty.

'They', as the Archivist refers to are relay towers scattered about the galaxy - each planted somewhere on a relatively small uninhabited planet - paired with a satellite of sorts orbiting said planet. This had been his undetected method of harvesting information from all over the galaxy - his method of staying up-to-date with all the intergalactic hustle-and-bustle, if you will.

Eventually reaching his personal hangar, the Archivist lept right into his personal ship; in which was a medium-sized luxury spaceship - also popularly dubbed as 'space-lambo'. Said ship was by no means intended for dogfighting thus lacked durability, however, it's infamous for its monstrous nuclear-powered engines, being able to achieve absurd speeds with little to no effort. This, in addition to its relatively manageable size, is what makes this 'space-lambo' the speedy little devil it is.

Shortly after his departure from Nexus, The Archivist was only starting to enjoy the comfort of his padded seat when a sudden bleeping halted his train of thoughts.

"Warning, unidentified nearby ships are detected within the vicinity."

If the Archivist still had human eyes, they'd have burst open at an instance. It was impossible to scan for life-signs from the distance, but if there was any chance anyone was onboard said ships, it might very well put him one step closer to figuring out the truth behind the Fall. Additionally, deprivation from communication for several weeks can make someone pretty lonely...

And with that, the Archivist fidget about with some more panels and buttons, putting his ship in next gear before rocketing forth the bookmarked location holding the three unidentified ships.

 

[Lyro]

.

.

.

The outburst had been unbefitting of his station. Revrin recognized that, and took a few seconds to calm himself down, nervously tapping his staff while he looked out the window.

"Dont worry, we'll be there. Just make sure your ship doesnt detonate before we can get you out of it, okay?"
"......not that we're going to get rid of it, if that's not what you want, of course. Just uh, hang tight."

That was the other one then. He sounded older than the first one, and his voice hinted at a completely different origin. Perhaps their meeting had indeed been coincidence, then. In any case, they seemed to be working together for now, which was all that mattered to him; he couldn't be sure his mind would have survived the experience of thinking himself rescued, only for his would-be rescuers to blow each other up right in front of his eyes.

"What's the condition of your reaction controls? Are you... uh, injured in any way?"

Revrin cleared his throat, purging the voice buffer of outdated cache entries, and flipped the comms switch once more to respond to the Blue Solstice's occupant. "Manoeuvrability is not foremost among this ship's qualities," he replied in a distinctly more composed manner, his voice's harmonics less erratic after his short tune-up. "I have only a few minutes' worth of fuel available onboard - the reactor drive is only intended for occasional course corrections. The sails are ready to be deployed, but will take some time to do so." As Revrin finished his sentence, he glanced out the bottom porthole and immediately spotted a brightly glowing light where there had been none before. A very, very bright light. One which was drawing closer and closer.

"Ah..." His voice faltered as he took in the sight. The ship must have been travelling very quickly while it was tracking him, since it had been continuously trying to catch up to his signal. This made a lot of sense, he reflected, as he watched the blue glow draw nearer against the backdrop of the planet. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be burning quite as brightly now, but it was still approaching unnervingly quickly. "Are you... equipped for rescue? I am not injured, and can maybe... maybe exit the ship if needed." He hoped it wouldn't come to that. His specifications mandated that he be able to function in space for several hours without any additional radiation shielding, but the idea of abandoning the only thing standing between him and the void was... unsettling.

Harmalite Mr.Sandstorm

 

[IctoraPost]

.

Qana

She groaned as the still, featureless space continued to be still and featureless and space. So boooring. There was nothing to do! Absolutely nothing. You’d think that the mysterious ceasing of all communications in an entire galaxy would be even slightly more exciting, but nooooo. She had already accepted the fact that everyone everywhere was likely to either be dead, teleported into an alternate dimension, abducted by aliens, or deleted by some glitch in the matrix. There were no new revelations to be found. Nothing to discover. There was just absolutely nothing to do.

She had her theories of mull on, of course. The disaster would have to have used hyperspace in some form or another. Faster-than-light travel options were rather limited. Maybe there was an alien species that lived in that space and were beginning to invade the baseline universe. Maybe there was a thought-to-be-useless gene in the human genome that was, in fact, not all that useless at all and was prone to spontaneously exploding in people’s heads. While leaving others fine. And also affecting sentient robots. On a galactic scale. All at the same time. Maybe a space monster came around and devoured everyone’s souls. Or maybe-

The sudden beep jerked Qana out of her conspiring daze. Peeling her cheek off the table, she padded out to the controls room, yawning as she went. She trudged around the chair with the ridiculous amount of padding, attempting to force her eyes open. What was it this time? Did the washing machine break again? Were they out of ice blocks? Was the petunia casserole done? No, it was just a medium-sized luxury spaceship blasting past them at absurd speeds.

Well.

She leapt at the controls, slamming down the voice control reactivation. “GET UP OFF YOUR LAZY BACKSIDE AND FOLLOW THAT SHIP, SHIP!” The ship slowly began getting up off its lazy backside and turning towards the miniscule object already far into the distance. She gritted her teeth as the solar panels were gently retracted into their compartments and the engines began their eighteen-step initiation process. The ship gradually lifted off the asteroid it had been using to collect sunlight and material resources, withdrawing its landing pads as it went.

Grinding her nails into the control panel, Qana cursed herself for wanting to get samples of rocks and ice. This was not the time for playing with toys. It was the apocalypse, dammit! And why was this ship so slow, anyway? Yes, it had to be or else it wouldn’t be a luxury ship suited for only the highest caste of the galaxy (and those with rich and generous bosses’ wives), but so what? It should have at least had an emergency speed mode or something...

She stopped. Her eyes swivelled across the controls to the large red button labelled “EMERGENCY”. She hesitated. Lifted a hand. Detached the glass cover. Press. With a jolt, the vehicle twisted around, skipped eight stages of its start-up procedure and rocketed off after the tiny speck. Painfully removing herself from the metal wall, Qana crawled over to the pilot’s seat and strapped herself in, rubbing at the bruises that were already forming. She could see why this chair was so well protected.

Looking out the viewscreen, she settled in for the ride – except they were almost there. The superbly shaped hunk of metal loomed ahead of her. “S-stop! Slow down! Deactivate emergency mode!” It deactivated emergency mode. It began slowing down. But it didn’t stop.

With a screeching, reverberating squeal that could have risen the dead and made them want to die again, the ship scraped past the bottom of the other, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal collision. The vehicle readjusted itself, and aligned its velocity relative to its slightly-damaged neighbour. Qana sat back into her seat, wiping her brow with the back of a hand. Not how she was envisioning the day would go when she woke up this morning.

Then she reached forwards and tapped the broadcast button. “Um… I, er… hi. Sorry ’bout that. How’s your day been?”

Slop

 

[D. Rex]

"That's what I said..." Bailey said. What the fuck indeed. At the Captains orders, she switched in the new heading, and the ship began pointing it's nose to the cruiser. All ready to go about things until Rotty belayed the order. Fine by her, would keep her from having to watch waves of curdled blood slush wash against the viewport. Not that she couldn't handle it, but she would rather not look at it if she didn't have to.

Though, I'm order to prove to the Captain that she wasn't just sitting there staring at it, Bailey pulled up the preliminary scans of the cruiser. "It has a hangar, here. Would probably be a better entry than a hatch. And less likely we would have to risk the robot hurting the ship when we let him out." Bailey really didn't approve of Juggz. She thought it was a stupid idea and thought it wisest to jettison him into deep space given the hazard he represented to them. Exercise, he called it. Reckless abandon she called it. Horrible idea...

Regardless, she hopped put of her seat and went about as ordered. Rushing off to the locker room, which was now all nice and organized finally, (since she had nothing better to do). She got herself dressed first. Putting on a simple flight suit and a her jet pack in a timely and practiced fashion. Donned her two pistols, and took a few extra EMP charges in case Juggz acted as she expected. Finally, she got a space helmet and sealed it to her suit. In case the life support systems had failed on the cruiser, or the more likely event thay Juggz put a hole in the hull.

Quickly, she gathered up the captains gear, gun, and a helmet. And pants. Carrying it all with the machine gun, was a little awkward. But she hurried back to the cockpit as quickly as she could.

"Here, boss." She said, laying out the stuff on in the Co pilots seat. "Are we really taking him with us?" She asked.

welian Zahzi Prizzy Kriyze The J

 

[Mr.Sandstorm]

The Pleaides
Vega System
Private Vessel "Ibn Battuta"
Harmalite Lyro
(blink blonk blink blonk)

Pulling back the throttle, Fernon checked the orbital flight screen again; everything checked out. The Ibn was now catching up to the needleship's rotation. He unglued his head out of the chair foam; he was yet to get used to high-g maneuvers, even with his cybernetics helping. That was just one of the burdens that he had to carry for still being human.
As per the Soltice's request, he began preparing his ship's scanning equipment for enviromental overwatch. After untying himself from the chair, he paced around the ship, activating terminals and locking stations. The two other ships began some brief conversation, but he paid no mind to it.

A short muffled hiss sounded from port. Three small EVA drones zoomed a few hundred meters away from the ship and from eachother, rigged up with cheap sensors and antenna dishes to give the Ibn a more three-dimensional view of the orbital neighbourhood. His ship currently lacked finer scanning equipment like LIDAR sensors, so he needed to resort to less refined substitutes for screening. It had been a long time since he had to make this type of in-field supervisio; It was quite nolstalgic, realy.
After a bit of typing, the three feeds from the drones were now overlapped and providing a 3D image of the needleship. He began moving the sensor view away from the small needle and around their orbital space, scanning section after section of the sky in a rotating fashion.

Noticing from the overlaped feeds that the Solstice had opened it's cargo shutters, Fernon saw back in the pilot chair and turned on the mic again:
"Now, I wont be able to detect solar flares in time without sending something into the inner system, but we shouldnt really be worrying about that out here; the probability of one hitting us at such a distanced orbit is miniscule. The terminator shock we're in worries me a bit more. I reckon the equipment I put on my EVA drones must already be taking damage from this energy-saturated enviroment."

"...uh, It's been an hour and we havent traded names yet, that's very uncharacteristic of me. Fernon Kansh. And you are....?"

 

[Slop]

All was well. Or whatever the fuck was closest to well. After all, everyone's 'disappearing' it seems and communication is scarce - it's a galactic catastrophe. Regardless, some people just don't give two shits. Just like how I had to redo this entire goddammed post because I'm in mobile and fucking deleted the whole post by accident. Or like how the Archivist was daydreaming despite the unholy fate that befell the galaxy. Of course, it's still nowhere near as bad the fact that mobile doesn't have bloody ctrl-z.

Anyway, blablabla, he was sitting his ass off, pondering about nothing and letting his mind just fly off to the land of Oz cause his luxury ship was capable of flying itself when suddenly, kablam, guess what, someone hit his ship.

Blablabla long descriptive essay short, he eventually woke up from daydreaming and heard the broadcast, of course, he bloody replied,

"If only your carelessness hadn't cost me the reliability of my hull, perhaps your abrupt and unwelcomed arrival would've irked me less. I presume you've yet to come across any other signs of life thus far? If so, you might want to consider tagging along for there are several ships within the vicinity. I am only a brief moment away from intercepting them, ergo if you seek answers regarding this clusterfuck of a mystery, I suggest switching to fill throttle and I will send you the coordinates."

I'm sorry for the profound lack of professionalism in this particular post, as yoy might hsvr figured out, my original post, while still in draft form, was accidentally deleted and since I'm using mobile, I don't have the privilege of ctrl-z.. So this is the first and hopefully last time I'll ever do this.

 

[Quillicious]

As Spades was yearning to be ejected out of the airlock and into the cold depths of space, he glanced around in boredom. There was a quiet ping as his ship picked up a disruption in hyperspace nearby. Given he was in the middle of nowhere in some dismal part of the galaxy, the mercenary knew that this had to be his quarry. The only details he had were that it was a younger woman in a modified ship, and that she was skilled in evading raiders. Whether or not she could evade his own skills, Spades wasn't sure. It seemed like the girl was stopping to refill her supply of water. His own cargo hold held months worth of food and water as long as he rationed it well enough. An icy rock drifted dangerously close to his ship, but it didn't make contact. If a chase was about to happen, Spades would have to be take extra precautions to avoid getting any holes in the hull of his ship. The engine came to life, along with the rest of the non-essential systems. He observed the way she gathered the ice with a bored expression, but kept a keen eye on the ship and nudged the throttle of his own. The Blackjack was turned, then nudged onto a course that would take him directly to his target. On each wing, a rotating heavy plasma gun whirred as Spades prepared to fire at the ice rocks in the way. The obstacles were decimated quickly, and now the path was clear to reach the ship. He prepared to get a lock on the target's ship to track her through hyperspace. "C'mon now, I don't have all day..."

Interactions/Mentions

Nash - Giyari

Interactions/Mentions

Tardy Grade

 

[Tardy Grade]

A few days had gone by and Reri tried to keep herself occupied by reading up some of the more interesting logs she'd downloaded before her assigned duty began. It focused on providing a general entry on Isolates and theories that orbited around their existence and what foreseeable impacts they could have. A popular topic to make guesses at and discuss among travelers as a means to kill time.

"Hey. Ai ... do you ever wonder what it would like to be human?"

"No Reri. That would be an exercise in futility an-"

"Right, right ... sorry I asked." she sighed as she played with a hypercube light projection and tossed it around. The aim of the game was to keep the structure visible at all times and now have it completely fall into the forth dimension. It was one of many games they had children play to increase their ability to comprehend the fourth dimensional properties.

"Reri, the data shows a large deposit of fresh water crystallized in t-" Ai was once again interrupted by her absolutely bored pilot and awaited the -

"A resource run? Sure just leave it automated." she shrugged as she was playing with her toy and gave an uninterested response.

"Yes, Reri. Preparing to hyper-jump." and then within half a minute they were gone. Blinked out and then... "We've arri- Reri we have company"

"WHAT?!" Reri asked as she scrambled out of her seat and checked the scanning system. Ships! People!

Giyari , Quillicious

 

[Zahzi]

JUG-62
Location: STUCK IN A GOD DAMN TINY ASS CARGO HOLD---RELOCATED TO A NEW, FLESHY SHIP
Nearby: 'LT. WEI ( welian ) AND CADET BAILEY' ( D. Rex )

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Juggz gave a mechanical laugh as he could hear the two fleshies conversing back and fourth. He was already ecstatic that the tinier, more battle-worn human agreed with his request. The more level-headed one was still skeptical about his use here. Ironically, he understood the sentiment. That didn't mean he cared, though. He slowly stood up from his 'perch' in the cargo hold, now pacing back and fourth, trying to come up with a plan. Sure, he could WAIT for the fleshbags to be ready and hear them yammer on and on about what they don't want him to touch. That gets annoying. REAL quick. So, time to improvise... Scanning showed exactly where this ship was...Wait for it....Wait for.....It....

_-WARNING\ AIRLOCK 03 OPENED WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION HULL BREACH DETECTED /WARNING-_

A pause.

_-ATTENTION\ HULL BREACH HAS BEEN SEALED. LOSS OF OXYGEN: NEGLIGIBLE. /ATTENTION-_

While it was scientifically proven eons ago that sound does not travel in the vacuum, but it is much easier to imagine the hulking war bot laughing maniacally as he shot toward the target ship like a rocket. As he came closer, his arms changed to their saw-based form, 'catching' himself on the membraneous layer, cutting through the gore and carving through the ship beneath, making a hole large enough for him to force his way through.
A metallic thud cut through the vacuum in the corridor as he magnetically locked himself onto the floor to keep himself from flying back off into space. Step two.
Turning back towards the breach that probably woke whatever was on this ship up, his arms changed once again to become a pair of torches, sealing the hole back up. It looked like shit, but so did the entire place. No big loss. Step three.

A ping echoed in the comms for both Bailey and Rottweiler, followed by mechanical laughter.
"HEY BITCHES. I MADE IT WHILE YOU TWO WERE STILL HAVING YOUR MOMENT."

01001110 01001111 01010111 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01000001 00100000 01000010 01001001 01000111 01000111 01000101 01010010 00101100 00100000 01000010 01001100 01000101 01000101 01000100 01001001 01001110 01000111 00100000 01010011 01001000 01001001 01010100 01001000 01001111 01001100 01000101 00101110

[OOC NOTE: Welian is standing directly behind me and has approved of Juggz' horrific misuse of The Vulture's airlock.]​

 

[IctoraPost]

.

Qana

Qana stared at the ship, shaking with anticipation and not a little anxiety. What if it was another one of those unmanned ships which had given her so much hope before? What if the people on it were inclined towards violence? Her ship, Eldll, was sturdy enough to withstand a decent amount of damage, but was certainly not built for a firefight. In combat, its best bet would be to get away as far as possible, as fast as possible. Of course, the other ship didn’t seem like it was built for war either, but looks could be deceptive. At this range, she would probably not be able to retreat quickly enough to ensure no damage being taken. At best, she would look rather worse for the wear, but still functional. At worst… It was not something very pleasant to think about.

When the voice came, Qana collapsed into the chair, a haunting weight seeming to lift off her shoulders. It was another person! Another living sentient lifeform! Hugging the armrest until her arms grew sore, she silently thanked every god or goddess or deity or space monster there ever was. She had found someone! Someone who should probably be listened to.

Jerking herself back upright, Qana sternly absorbed the latter half of the voice’s words. For such an eloquent speaker, the swearing seemed slightly out of place – but not jarringly so. And there were more ships! The day was getting better by the second.

“Yes! Okay, right. I’ll go, uh, ‘full throttle’ then.”

“Ship! Go full throttle to the coordinates that you should have received, probably!

“W-wait! Stop the full throttle! Stoppit! Just follow the guy at the speed they’re going. Yes, I mean the other ship. Who else would I be talking about? No, shut up, that was rhetorical.”

“The name’s Jvsqana, by the way. Ywafohd Jvsqana. Um. Pretty happy to meet another person after three weeks of this ‘clusterfuck’, as you call it. And, uh, sorry again for your ship. I can pay to get it fixed. Though I suppose my money’s limited since I’m not getting a salary any more. But since there’s no one to pay it to, currency is pretty useless anyway. So I can’t pay for your ship. I guess we’ll just have to be more careful with our stuff since most of us have no way to fix them… hmm…”

Slop

 

[Harmalite]

"Manoeuvrability is not foremost among this ship's qualities. I have only a few minutes' worth of fuel available onboard - the reactor drive is only intended for occasional course corrections. The sails are ready to be deployed, but will take some time to do so."

Beya cursed under his breath as he heard the robot's statement as accompanied by the obstinate radiation alarms, which blared their disapproval for any sort of EVA assistance. No RCS, and sails would be the opposite of helpful. At the very least, he'd have to go out to the airlock to operate the manipulator arm.

"Are you... equipped for rescue? I am not injured, and can maybe... maybe exit the ship if needed."

Interesting. So it was a robot, not the ship itself. Still, Beya was hesitant, since radiation could be just as unfriendly to most androids as it is to humans. Most of them... hmm... dammit, no, it's rude to ask refugees for their make and model before taking them in.

"No, Don't uh... Don't exit the ship. For now at least, not until I get you inside. There's a lot of radiation in this area, so... it's kind of a bad idea for anyone to be out there. Just sit tight."

On the virtual rendezvous display, the needleship now drifted vertically downwards towards the open bay, its movement getting slower by the second. It was far from as perfect as he hoped it would be: there would be no way to orient the Solstice perfectly and slow down enough without thruster wash blasting the other lightweight vessel off course. Ah, so close, yet so far. Arm it is, then. The gravity in the bridge returned at the press of a button and a cacophony of garbage and laundry clattering onto the floor suddenly filled the air. Newton had been kind to him; it had all been slammed against the back wall by deceleration, but the view as he swiveled the chair around didn't do anything to help his nausea. Several half-eaten ration packs had emptied their residual contents on the wall, dripping onto discarded spacesuit undergarments (of which there were startlingly few for a 3-week stint) and various papers and utensils had managed to wedge themselves in the strangest of places. He paced around looking, half in confusion and half in self-loathing, until he came to the solution that the greatest of minds have frequently settled on: Deal with it later.

Some vanity hadn't escaped him though. Immediately beyond the cockpit lay a display of visceral horror, something so vile-looking that he couldn't help but stare. A mirror. This bastard of a rectangle, situated between the doors of two habitation pods, brought Beya an unwelcome and bitter taste of self-awareness. His hair resembled a microwaved animal, the skin under his eyes bruised and sagged, and he'd managed to acquire the startings of flab around his midsection, which he pinched at defeatedly.

He wasn't here to admire the wondrous effects of low gravity and vitamin deficiency, though. Head down in shame, Beya quickly shuffled through to the workshop. It was uncharacteristically spacious for such a cramped garbage heap of a ship, and clean too: as he stepped in, he stumbled a bit under a phantom weight. The gravity in the compartment was always kept at a reassuring 0.89 G, with inertial dampers to prevent the delicate equipment within from being tossed around like pinballs. As such, the holo-vambrace lay right where he left it, the large table at the center of the room. Motionlessly, a robotic arm hovered over it, it's diagnostics terminal indicating recently completed repairs. Beya grabbed it by the manipulator and pushed it aside so he could reach the device, which spat out a dense sheaf of holographic information as he clasped it around his forearm, a compact version of the panels on the dashboard. After a brief static, the old man's voice begin to play.

"Now, I wont be able to detect solar flares in time without sending something into the inner system, but we shouldnt really be worrying about that out here; the probability of one hitting us at such a distanced orbit is miniscule. The terminator shock we're in worries me a bit more. I reckon the equipment I put on my EVA drones must already be taking damage from this energy-saturated enviroment.

EVA drones, why didn't I think of that? As if on cue, the old man's mechanical helpers whizzed by the portholes in a taunting sort of way. Beya made another mental note for his next project. Scooting awkwardly around the table, avoiding the other arms, he made his way to the airlock at the far end of the room.

"...uh, It's been an hour and we havent traded names yet, that's very uncharacteristic of me. Fernon Kansh. And you are....?"

"Beya. Thalcyon. Not the actor, the scientist. Well, I used to be a scientist, now... I guess i'm sort of a freedom fighter? That doesn't mean terrorist, I promise."

He approached the terminal beside the airlock, and a camera display appeared, facing upwards from the floor of the payload bay at the Needleship. The scene was almost eerie, how the tiny craft hung in the air with almost no visible motion, and a pale face barely visible behind glass, a sight that was slightly startling as the first face he'd seen in weeks.

Lyro Mr.Sandstorm

 

[Natealie]

Much time had already passed since the end of the universe. Veles however, was seemingly unaffected. True there were several complications and the majority of The Abraxus Collective was now dead, but this was mostly unrelated. Most of these deaths were suicides as many of the people Camilla knew couldn't bear the thought of living in a universe past the end. Many were lab accidents, which is unfortunately a lot more common than one would think. But for the most part Camilla was able to keep her group safe. Previously they were her bosses, but now she had all the skills to keep everyone alive. So they all deferred to her. It felt, odd, as she still saw these people as a family.

What was important however was information. This had always been a belief of The Abraxus Collective, and now it was no different. That is why weeks ago she had sent out several probes to study the universe and hopefully try to find other survivors. Each of them had the coordinates of Veles on it and the passcode to bypass the world's cloaking device. Sighing she had begun to get used to this world and how it was now. Veles was still a radiant beauty abundant with natural resources. This was because The Abrazus Collective generally stuck to their compound, leaving the majority of the land unexplored. Regardless however, Camilla had a lot of work to do today, and every other day.