Lost In Space

[Lady Jenn]

Thompson had a pounding headache as he slowly regained consciousness, finding himself lying on his back on the floor, staring at a golden, ornate ceiling. "That's weird," he thought to himself. "I'm sure the ceiling of the mess hall didn't look this fancy last time I checked." He sat up gingerly, wincing as he felt a sharp pain in his right arm and looking around. He was on the bridge of ship, but a quick glance told him it wasn't the one he had been on moments before.

"Hello?" he called out, unsure if there would even be anyone out there. "Someone mind telling me what the hell is going on here?"

[Kevak]

The words of "AAauuuuuugh! What the hell just happened!" Sounded out from behind a console.
The sound of flailing could be heard for a few minutes before stopping, and another question floated out from behind the console. "Hey, could someone give me a hand here? I'm a bit stuck."

[Lady Jenn]

"Gimme a second," he said, walking over to the console, finding the gap between the wall and the console so that he could open it and helping the man out. "I take it you're as confused as I am?" he asked, looking around the ship. "Oh, I'm Robert Thompson, I am...I was the engineer on the Merchant vessel the Dryad. Guessing you're not military judging by that uniform," he said, looking the other man up and down warily.

[Kevak]

"Nah, I'm a freelance programmer, name's Kevak I was on Govath V the last I knew and was walking back to my apartment. Nice to meet you by the way."
Kevak puts his hands to his temples and groans as his ear headset twitches. This place is giving me a headache, I can't get my bearings on any comm-net station and the whole ship is loud in the ultrasound.

(Kevak wears a sensor suite, imagine the necomimi robotic cat ears that Neuroware makes and make them more functional and put a bunch of sensors in there and an electrical hepatic nervous interface [hepatic meaning the system stimulates the nervous system, in this case with electricity in order to get the sensation of feeling from the suite.])

[Lady Jenn]

"I can probably get this ship to tell us where we are but I dunno if its systems are online, other than life support anyway." He went over to one of the consoles and began pressing buttons, for a moment smiling before his face went pale. "Uh, well I've got some good news and I've got some bad news."

[Kevak]

Kevak walked quickly over, fingers rubbing his temples. "What is it? What happened? It didn't break right?"

[Lady Jenn]

"Well the good news is this is definitely a human ship, took me no time at all," he said, biting his lip. "The bad news is the first thing I've discovered is we're in the Andromeda Galaxy. The best ship Earth has couldn't make that journey in less than 150 years."

[Kevak]

"We'll how the hell did we get here?! Also do we have a heading?"
With this said, Kevak sat down on the floor and groaned loudly. "Shut up ship! Quiet down!"

[Lady Jenn]

"I don't know," he said, looking through the systems with uncertainty. "It wasn't this ship, I can tell you that. This is at least fifty years old, this is well beyond its tech." He finally found the button to switch on the viewscreen. "Oh god," he said, seeing the sight of hundreds of ships scattered around them. "I'm detecting...everything from large battlecruiser class ships to personal VIP shuttles out there."

[Kevak]

Kevak stood up suddenly and fired off a flurry of questions.

"Can we talk to any of them? Can they hear us? Do they have a comm-net?"
"How the hell did we even get here if we are in a ship that's fifty years old?!"

He walked over to console in the corner of the room, grabbed a piece of debris, and smashed the console with it. Lights on the ship flickered slightly and then appeared to continue as normal. "Finally some quiet, figured out what was running that was blaring in ultrasound."

"Hope I didn't break anything super important from that."

[Lady Jenn]

"I think this ship was here already, someone or something put us here," he said. "The weirdest thing is it was powered down, it's like they were expecting someone to be here." He checked the readings. "Good luck contacting those ships, I'm getting..." he paused. "There's literally nothing, no energy signatures, no life signs, if we couldn't see the ships I'd think the computer was malfunctioning, but that's impossible...unless..." he froze. "Shit, we need to reverse right now," he said, the ship lurching backwards. "All those legends among smugglers and I'm not smart enough to realise what's happening." Just visible between the ships was an odd flourescent orb which seemed to be blinking on and off.

[Kevak]

Kevak falls over as the ship lurches. "Ow Fuck!"

His head begins throbbing again as the ultrasound wailing returns.

"What the hell is going on and why the hell is the sound back?! I thought I broke what was making it!"

And What legends? What is that bluish thing?

[Lady Jenn]

"They're called Ships Graveyards," Thompson said, staring at the screen. "At least, that's what the smugglers call them anyway, dunno if there's an official name. No-one's absolutely sure what they are, heard everything from some bizarre anomaly to some leftover weapon from a war to some kind of sentient creature. They feed off the energy of a ship, doesn't matter at long distance but there's a point where the harder you try to escape the quicker you're drained. You can imagine dying as your life support slowly fails is probably a pretty horrible experience."

[Kevak]

Well how the hell do we get away then?
And is it what's making that sound?

[Lady Jenn]

"We're fine at this distance," he said. "We were drifting towards it but luckily I figured it out while we still had energy to get away. We're safe...well, from that anyway." He winced at the shot of pain up his arm. "Okay, I think we need to figure out where the sickbay is before we do anything else."

[Kevak]

The sound begins slowly fading.

"Onward then!" Kevak shouts over the sound that only he can perceive.

He walks over to the door and presses the open button. Nothing happens.

"Damnit, I think it's locked, gimme a few minutes and I should have it open." Kevak says as he pries off the access panel.

A port opens in the tail Kevak is wearing and a interface jack pops out, the tail moves and connects to an interface jack.

"This may take a bit, hope you can hold out for a while."

[Lady Jenn]

"I should be," he said, resting against the computer console with his good arm. "Don't understand the pain though, I've not been shot so I should be fine. My body can hate me sometimes," he said with a nervous laugh.

[Kevak]

A high pitched beeping sound goes off for a second before a mechanical whine can be heard and the grinding of metal on metal, slowly the antiqued door grinds open.

"Could there be some internal damage?" Kevak asks as he extracts his tail from the access port.
"Lets just hope there is a sickbay on this junker." Kevak mutters.

[Lady Jenn]

"There will be," he said. "I've finally figured out where I know this ship from. It's the Constantine, it was the EDF flagship before it vanished while responding to a distress signal 50 years ago. I know the design partly because my brother was obsessed with it but also...my uncle was on it when the ship vanished."

[Kevak]

"Well maybe we can find his body and bring it back with us." Kevak said. "Wait, you know the ship's blueprint? Lead the way then. I'm just walking randomly here."

[Lady Jenn]

"It's a couple of floors down, for some reason they liked putting sickbay near engineering, think that might say a lot about how safe their engineering section was back in those days," he said, laughing but suddenly feeling slightly woozy.

[Kevak]

"Dude, you okay over there? You don't look well." Kevak says.

[Lady Jenn]

"I'm fine," he said, moving his hand to his arm. "Just...oh fuck," he said, moving his hand away and finding blood on it. "Uh, yeah, could we hurry up getting to the sickbay please?"

[Kevak]

"Yah, is there an elevator or staircase near here?" Kevak said glancing at Robert. "Um dude, you're bleeding.

[Lady Jenn]

"Yeah, that's why I need sickbay," he said, clenching his teeth. "There should be an elevator at the end of this hall. Besides, it might be worth looking at the last recordings of the crew, might give us a clue or two about what's happening."

[Kevak]

"Do you need some help walking dude?" Kevak asked. "We should probably look at those after we get you to the sickbay also."

[Kevak]

OOC: Since I can't edit I'll clarify here.

The second statement was about the crew records.

[Lady Jenn]

"That might be a good idea," he said. "Not sure how well I can walk. Bloody hell, what did they shoot me with? Admittedly I don't have much experience being shot," he said with a laugh.

[Kevak]

Kevak moves over and helps support Robert as they continue walking towards the elevator. As he is doing this he says:

"I haven't a clue what they shot you with, I'm a coder, not a doctor. I didn't even notice you had been injured till you started bleeding."

[Lady Jenn]

"Me neither," He said. "The only other option is it was something during our journey here. We've travelled far further than transporter technology should be capable of covering."

[Kevak]

"Well, as far as I know I'm undamaged so hopefully it was just a freak accident and not something that will cause difficulty for me later" Kevak says as they reach the elevator. "Any idea how this panel works? It's a bit outdated."

[Lady Jenn]

"Just enter the floor number we want," he replied. "We have enough luck that apparentely the lift is on this floor already," he said. "Something feels...wrong about this ship," he said. "There were 300 men on board when it vanished but there's no sign of them and not the slightest sign of violence anywhere."

[Kevak]

"What floor is it?" Kevak asked before saying: "Yah. this ship does feel a bit off, that and that sound is still there, no idea what it is but my headache isn't bugging me as much now that I'm a bit more used to it. Hope there aren't zombies, you know like in those old holodisc films? That would be horrid."

[Lady Jenn]

"A couple of floors down," he said. "Floor 32," he said, suddenly noticing the floor number on the wall behind him. "What worries me is those ships we saw. Evidently we aren't the first people this has happened to and yet no-one can figure out how it's being done."

[Kevak]

Kevak punches in the numbers 32 and the lift begins to descend.

[Lady Jenn]

"If you can sort out my arm I can interact with the computer," he said. "This had experimental tech, so you could operate the computer by voice alone. It was supposed to be used in a battle situation."

[Kevak]

"Not exactly sure how to fix out your arm, not a doctor remember?" Kevak states. "Do you think the computer would know how?"

[Lady Jenn]

"Probably the next best thing to a real doctor," he said with a laugh, beginning to feel dizzy again. "Okay, we might want to hurry up, not sure I'll be able to walk around for much longer."

[Kevak]

The lift arrives at floor 32 and the door opens, Kevak peeks out the door to make sure nothing is out there before helping Robert out the door. "Which way now my recently met fellow abductee?

[Lady Jenn]

"Uh," he closed his eyes, trying to remember the blueprints off the top of his head. "It should be fourth door on the right," he said. He opened his eyes again. "This is looking more and more like the Marie Celeste," he said with a nervous laugh.

[Kevak]

Kevak helps Robert over to the door and activates the keypad, the door slides open.

"I'm assuming you know how to get it to work? I'm hopeless with meditech." Kevak says as they walk in.

[Lady Jenn]

"Voice control should do it," he said, dropping onto one of the beds. "Computer? We need medical assistance, scan for injuries."

"Scanning," came a voice from seemingly nowhere. "There appears to be some kind of shrapnel lodged in your left arm. I can stem the bleeding and stitch up the wound but the shrapnel cannot be removed entirely safely. I would advise against attempting to operate."

"Well, it's our choice," Thompson said. "But if something goes wrong your stuck in the middle of nowhere alone."

[Kevak]

"It's totally up to you, it's your arm and your life dude." Kevak tells Robert.

[Lady Jenn]

"How bad is it computer?" Thompson asked.

"There is a major artery in the vicinity, any attempt to remove carries a 75% risk that-"

"Yeah," Thompson said, interrupting. "Patch up the wound and give me any painkillers you can. Anyway, while we wait for this to finish do you want the computer to scan you? Might be worth checking considering it took me that long to realise I was injured."

[Kevak]

"Sure, it might pick up a bit of weirdness where the hepatics interface, not exactly what is considered normal nerve growth around there, but otherwise I should be fine." Kevak said.

[Lady Jenn]

"No problems detected," the computer stated as it began to work on the injury, Thompson wincing slightly.

"Computer, are there any recordings from after the ship arrived here?" he asked.

"Affirmative, there are two, one from two hours after our arrival and one 2 days afterwards."

[Kevak]

"Computer, could you state them please?" Kevak asked the computer.

[Lady Jenn]

The image of a man in a battered military uniform appeared before them, paused for a moment before beginning to play.

"My name is Captain Steven Thompson, commander of the EDF flagship the Constantine. I hope this message is never seen because I doubt you have any idea the danger is in if you do." The figure turned away from the camera for a moment before returning. "Two hours ago, while responding to a distress signal in deep space we were attacked by some kind of...I don't know what it was, but when we woke up we found ourselves millions of light years away from our original location. From pretty much the moment we arrived we have been pursued by a ship of unknown design, which is faster and more heavily armed then us. A third of my crew is already dead...Our only chance is to find whatever bought us here and try-"

The recording suddenly stopped, leaving Thompson sat their looking stunned as the computer finished the operation.

[Kevak]

"So where the hell are all the bodies? And wasn't there another recording?" Kevak asked more to himself then anything else. "Also was that your uncle there?"

[Lady Jenn]

"Yeah," he said, nodding and shaking slightly. "Show us the other recording computer." The man reappeared, now covered in cuts and bruises and with a uniform in shreds

I...well, you know who I am. I am now piloting the Constantine alone, my crew dead or having escaped to see if there's a safe planet nearby. I will evacuate once this recording is finished but I need to record this. When the enemy ship gave up I tried following it and I found...they're building a fleet, I counted at least 40 ships. I have been unable to make contact with them so I can only assume they are planning an attack. Earth must be warned, they can strike at will. Tell my wife I'm sorry, and I love her, and I hope to god this reaches Earth in time."

"That is the last known human interaction with this ship other than an escape pod being launched," the computer said as the image vanished.

[Kevak]

"How old did you say he was again when the ship vanished?" Kevak asked. "Also why are there no bodies? He said most of them were dead, so why no corpses?

[Lady Jenn]

"I don't know," he said, looking completely stunned. "He vanished before I ever had a chance to meet him. As for the bodies...they must have been here," he said. "There's a reason they've kept this ship working and they sent us here, there are much more modern ships hanging lifeless out there."

[Kevak]

"So do you think we will meet whatever or whomever did this?" Kevak asked.

[Lady Jenn]

"That or we'll have to confront them," Thompson replied. "We would be dead long before this ship reached the Milky Way, nevermind Earth, and whoever is out there may have the only way of us getting home."

[Kevak]

"So should we start asking to see them on the comms and see if they respond?" Kevak asked.

[Lady Jenn]

"We can try," he replied. "We stand more chance trying that than going toe to toe, judging by those logs this stands little chance in a straight fight."

[Kevak]

So how would we go around getting the ship comms to work? I can send out comms using my gear but it wouldn't be very strong or long range in terms of power. Kevak said.

[Lady Jenn]

"It might be safer to go looking for them," Thompson replied. "Well, as safe as going after a much better armed ship is ever likely to get anyway. We might be in more danger if we sit here waiting for them."

[Kevak]

Can you pilot this thing? Kevak asked. After about five second he adds "Is your arm doing better by the way?

[Lady Jenn]

"Probably about as well as it will ever be," Thompson said. "I think I can, I-" his sentence was cut off as an alarm sounded through the ship. "Oh crap, proximity alarm," Thompson said. "I think we might be confronting them sooner than we intended."

[Kevak]

"We should get to the bridge." Kevak said. "If knew what their OS is then I could hack and hopefully disable them to an extent."

[Lady Jenn]

"Try seeing if you can get a scan of their ship," he said, as they got to the bridge. "I'll try and manoeuvre the ship enough they won't be able to get a clear shot off, at least until the shields are functioning properly."

[Kevak]

"I can try." Kevak replied as he plugged his tail into a bridge interface jack.

Kevak activated and deactivated any protocols that looked related to targeting and scanning pretty much at random.

"Hope that does something good." Kevak muttered.

[Lady Jenn]

"You fixed the shields," Thompson said with a smile. "Whatever the hell you just did keep doing it, they can't get a clear lock on us with their weapons." There was an explosion near to the ship. "Okay, need to pay more attention where I'm piloting this thing obviously."

[Kevak]

"I'm just activating and disabling and messing with random settings." Kevak said as he continued to scroll through the controls and fiddle with them.

[Lady Jenn]

"Well you're better at this than I am," he said, missing another shot by a matter of inches. "If I didn't know better I'd have thought you've flown one of these ships before."

[Kevak]

"I've played some of the old video games with these in them before but never flown one before in reality." Kevak said. "It might be my gear, I loaded random programs on it before so I may have put something on them close enough to this ship's control matrix that it sorta works for it."

[Lady Jenn]

"Well keep doing it," Thompson said "I can't get any kind of weapons lock on that ship, it's got some kind of shielding around it which is making the targeting sensors bounce back off it."

[Kevak]

"Kevak continues activating and deactivating random protocols, suddenly the console starts blaring a loud piercing siren." AAUGH FUCKING KLAXON BLARING PIECE OF SHIT!" Kevak shouts as he kicks the console. The siren shuts off abruptly and one specific light on the bridge flickers a few times before returning to normal. The ship lurches forward slightly and the console reads that the ship's power generation is a tad bit more functional then they were before. Kevak could feel his headache returning from the noise. "Uuugh headaches back." Kevak groaned. "I think the reactor is working better though, console says we aren't running on 10% power anymore."

[Lady Jenn]

"That's good," Thompson said as the explosions kept getting closer. "I don't suppose you know how to use weapons? I was never allowed near what few weapons my old ship possessed," he said with a laugh.

[Kevak]

"I have no real experience but I've played videogames, I may be able too get them to work." Kevak said as he unjacked from the console and walked over to a weapons console and fiddled with it. "Hey, this thing is similar to the Starship 49813 weapons systems engine. I think it is a secondary weapons console but it may a primary one, hard to tell." Kevak remarked as he attempted to power it up.


Edit: Fixed grammar error.

[Lady Jenn]

"They're hailing us," Thompson said, biting his lip. "Okay, this I didn't see coming. Uh...can you handle this?" He managed to move the ship's course just in time to miss another blast. "Okay, either these guys are lousy shots or they aren't trying to kill us...yet..."

[Kevak]

"Erm yah, I can handle that." Kevak fiddled with the console and a distorted sound sequence began sounding through the bridge. "Gimme a minute" Kevak muttered to himself as he typed in commands. Slowly the transmission resolved into the end of a sentence.  "**********~~~--er" Kevak held down a key and asked "Um... Could you please repeat that? We were having comm problems."

[Lady Jenn]

"Stand down, we are not aliens," a voice finally broke through the static.

"How do we know?" Thompson said. "How do you know we aren't?"

"Unlike your ship our sensors are functioning properly," the voice replied. "Look, we'll drop our shields as a sign of trust, you can scan us, you'll see we're telling the truth."

[Kevak]

"They dropped their shields dude." Kevak said. "I'm gonna scan them." Kevak activated the weapon's built in sensor suite and began scanning.

[Lady Jenn]

"Well either our sensors are malfunctioning or there are humans on board that," Thompson said.

"Can we beam aboard?" the voice asked. "We have information I think you're going to want to here."

[Kevak]

"Is there a reason you can't just comm it over?" Kevak asked?

[Lady Jenn]

"Cos you're not gonna believe it unless we show it," the voice replied. "And your comms don't have that function."

[Kevak]

Kevak let go of the comm key. "Rob, is there an armory on ship?" Kevak asked. "I want to be armed with more then just Lflashclaw gauntlets, they tend to only be good if the person isn't expecting it."

[Lady Jenn]

"There should be one a couple of decks down from here," he said. "As for what'll be in it, I dunno, probably not anything hi-tech though."

[Kevak]

"I'll be back in a few minutes then, can you hold down the fort?" Kevak asked before pressing the key and saying "We are discussing, please be patient."

[Lady Jenn]

"Okay," Thompson replied. "Just don't hang around, we don't want to attract any unwanted attention." He kept one eye on the scanner, making sure he wouldn't be caught off guard.

[Kevak]

Kevak sprinted over to the lift and looked for a floor directory, finding one, he punched in the Floor the armory was on and waited for the lift to reach the designated floor.

[Lady Jenn]

"Keavak, we have a problem," Thompson said over the comlink. "A new lifeform just blinked onto internal sensors, they must still be abducting people."

[Kevak]

"Erm question, how do we know they are abducting people? Wouldn't they just teleport over here regardless of what we want if they could bypass our shields? Kevak asked as he exited the elevator and began walking down a hallway towards the armory. "Also, is it human or something other?"

[Lady Jenn]

"They're showing as human," he replied. "Plus if they're teleporting they're doing it from an insane distance, we're the only two ships I can detect for at least five light years around."

[Kevak]

"Well then... HOW THE HELL DID THEY GET ON BOARD THEN?!" Kevak shouted via the commset built into his hepaticas as he entered the armory and looked around. "Do you want any weapon by the way?" Kevak asked after a moment.

OOC: Sorry for not posting yesterday since it is technically yesterday as it is 1:01 AM or so now, irl crap was interfering.

[Lady Jenn]

"No, I'll be fine for now," he said as the computer started beeping at him. "Kevak, whoever it is I don't think they're a threat, even with the basic sensors I have I can tell something's wrong. If you want to deal with our visitors I'll go and check up on the new arrival."

[Kevak]

Kevak gathers an armful of weapons and ammo and sprints back to the elevator, one of the weapons falls and discharges into a wall, scorching it with plasma fire, Kevak continues running and places the remaining weapons in the lift gently before setting the console to the bridge floor and activating the lift. "Sure, gimme a minute to get up there, I just grabbed a bunch of random weapons since I have no idea what type any of these are."

[Lady Jenn]

"What's happening?" came a voice over the comms. ""We're getting weird readings from your ship."

"We're...working on it," Thompson replied as he tried to remember where the reading was coming from. "Just bear with us."

[Kevak]

Kevak gets to the bridge and puts the weapons down in a corner. "Any idea how the person got onboard?" He asked as he put the weapons down.

"Also should we let one of them onboard?" Kevak added on as he walked over to Robert.

[Lady Jenn]

"I'm guessing the same way we did," he said as he found the person. "Damnit, found her too late, she must have been injured when they teleported her. She's definitely one of ours though, she's got an EDF uniform on her. Better let them onboard unless you can think of a better course of action."

[Kevak]

Kevak picks up a large deadly looking weapon and says "I have no idea how to use this, but let's let one onboard."

"Also how injured is she?" Kevak adds after a moment.

[Lady Jenn]

"Unless our computer is capable of performing miracles she's a goner," he replied. "I'm getting no pulse or breathing. In theory if you just point the gun and press the trigger it should work."

[Kevak]

"Well then lets let one of them over; You wanna tell them?" Kevak asks.

[Lady Jenn]

"Sure," he said, getting up and heading towards the lift. "I'll be with you in a couple of minutes but feel free to invite them over now."

[Kevak]

Kevak turns on the comm mic and asks the other ship. "So how's your day been? Some weird shit is going on over here right now so we will probably let you come over in a few minutes once we sort it out, I personally have no clue what is going on beyond that it's something that shouldn't be happening."

[Lady Jenn]

"We can explain it," the man replied. "Well, some of it anyway. We were beginning to think we were the only humans out here."

[Kevak]

"Well, it may take a bit for us to get situated, what is effectively a corpse appeared on the scanners a minute or so ago and the other guy went to check it out, not quite sure why cause it's a corpse and therefore not a problem, mind explaining what you can well we wait?"

[Lady Jenn]

"They're called Wraiths," the man replied. "At least, that's the best name we could get from the few survivors we can find. No-one appears to have made direct contact with them beyond space battles. We thought at first they were abducting people at random but...they appear to be trying to learn, like they're reconning our defences."

[Kevak]

"Any idea where they came from?" Kevak asked. "And are the other survivors still alive?"

[Lady Jenn]

"We don't know exactly," the man replied. "They seem to have a substantial foothold in several nearby star systems, one of which is where we...borrowed this ship," he said, laughing slightly. "I only know of six survivors other than you, all of whom are on board this ship."

[Kevak]

"How many people are over there? Kevak asked before adding. "Also where are you specifically from?"

[Lady Jenn]

"There are ten counting what little crew I have," the man replied. "We were on a patrol ship, the others are a mix of civilians and a couple of engineers."

[Kevak]

"Okay then." Kevak responded. "May I ask why you want to come over here?"

[Lady Jenn]

"When we took this ship we discovered something," the man replied. "I don't know if it is a way of stopping them outright but it may give us an advantage. You have to see it with your own eyes though."