Space Ruins [IC]

[ericthered]

Sometimes missions are given months of meticulous planning, with the people coming along carefully selected and with care taken to not reveal a site. Sometimes, the mission is thrown together at a moments notice because you need to get there before anyone else does.

The mission to the haldor station was one of the latter. The HTRL (Haldor Technological Recovery League) got wind of the find as a tip from one of its powerful but deeply anonymous funders. The first ship they could lay their hands on was the 'sea turtle', and they scraped together enough of their own specialists to make the mission work, then recruited those with a deeper knowledge base to make up for their inability to field the 50 man mission this sort of a find deserved. The crew was not properly informed of the mission until Atif (Manager of the scientists) brought everyone together in the conference room. for their introductory briefing. Normally the twistings of hyperspace would not allow this, but recently hyperspace had been uncharacteristically calm, especially for this close to terran space.

The room gave quite a cosmopolitan feel -- if you knew all the differences in human culture.

Atif herself, the directory for this expedition, wore long flowing robes that would have looked at home in the desert if they were more dirty or less faded. She gazed around the table, waiting for everyone to settle in.

The right side of the room was occupied by the ships crew. The navigator stood out the most among them, wearing a crisp uniform that belonged to no military force in the galaxy and a pistol (mostly for show). He sat at attention, watching Atif. The other crew lounged back in their chairs. Rulon's massive girth sank his chair down lower than the others, while Marli's small body rested at a similar height, but only because the chair didn't sink at all. They were discussing something quietly. Anthon was absorbed in some work on his data-pad, seemingly unsure that the ship was really safe to leave alone. He wore the two-loose jumpsuit he wore everywhere -- people joked he slept in it.

The scientists sat on her other side. Maria Randez was arguing with Pikkuki about the merits of 'musicals'. Maria had the dark hair of so many terrans and wore classic Terran business atire. Pikkuki's head was topped with a mass of green fleshy feelers and he (oh what a blessing that was) wore a bright costume that used entirely too much red, yellow, and orange. As a packchekki, he switched gender every few weeks or so. When in his male state, he would laze around and wax quite philosophical. In his (her) female state he(she) would rush around looking for anything to do, even if it wasn't her job. Pikkuki's skin was a moist as a frogs, and the seat had a special cover to keep it dry.

Next to those two a ball hovered, letting off a faint humming sound. Small metal bugs rested motionless on it, and a screen mounted on the ball read "Aunt Ann is ready to begin". Engineer Ants. Pikkuki changed gender every so often, and that was confusing enough. Desipite the fact that Engineer ants didn't have genders (or rather had hundreds of both genders) it was surprising that Aunt ann insisted on being treated as a woman. Calling either of them 'It' was a bad idea.

Next to the floating ball was Garzo. Garzo wore leather, weapons, and large black shades to protect his sensitive eyes. his skin was wrinkled and leathery itself, and folded around the short snout on his face. His outfit was as martial as Zariq's, but where Zariq's uniform emphasized discipline, Garzo's clothing emphasized a rough and ready feel.

Of course, the real jokers in her deck of cards were sitting at the far end of the table...

OCC: introduce yourselves!

[Refplace]

Dr. Smith is sitting comfortably in a chair with his datapad in one hand ready to take notes. He is clean shaven and wearing a lab coat over uyiliaian clothes.
He also has what likes like a computer strapped to his left wrist and assorted odd gear straped all over. No obvious weapons though mosthere would not underesinate the min laser torch in capable hands. He sits quietly waiting for then NTSC to begin.

[LemmingLord]

Ashley wears a stomach revealing homemade tee shirt with the holographic heads of the four members of the punk band "Murder Buggy" on holographical medieval spikes under Haldorian script that reads Ashley's favorite single "Chew Your Nothing."

Of course that her eyes don't always seem to be facing the same direction is an unpleasant sight. Anyone familiar with cyberwear will assume one or both eyes are synthetic.

She takes a moment to touch Dr. Smith's shoulder and compliment him on his latest paper. She'll quote a section and ask him if he might take her by the hand and show her how best to assist him should they ever find an actual Haldor in suspended animation someday...

If asked to introduce herself, Ashley says "Ashley." If urged to give more, "cursing, precursing, lady valence, sir valence, ship stuff in a pinch."

Most people know her. She doesn't need to give herself too many labels.

At some point in the meeting she will data pad message the pilots asking some standard "did you remember to do x, y and z with the autopilot?"

[Refplace]

Interesting idea
It depends on the condition and what we can tell. It may b a sentryor refugee. But odds are it will be a critically injured or sick patient. Quarantine would be required till dseaee are tested for including the patients vulnerability to ours.
The patient would likely be scared too so car taken to was the natural gear of waking up among strangers

[Poonbahbah]

A short waif of a woman in loose fitting silver robes introduces herself as "Ophelia Spanner, tech specialist," in a quiet voice. She's spent most of her time in her quarters since arriving onboard. She has pale skin and small golden hoop earrings that go well with her spikey blonde hair.

[ericthered]

Haja brings up the screen at the head of the table behind her. It displays an image of their target: a very obviously haldorian space station. statistics and readings to the right of the image give a general idea of its size and condition.

Haja: "Four days ago a small survey ship stumbled across this haldor military installation. We are calling it SH-89, as its the 89th haldor site found off of the Sigus system (where all of you started) . As you can see, SH-89 about 8,000 tons, four times the size of the ship we are currently in, and while a considerable part of it is military, it also has a large portion devoted to life support, and scans make up us pretty sure its not a barracks. More impressively, Its still mostly up and running. There is a high concentration of debris in the surrounding space, its taken substantial damage, its shields are down. It fired on the survey ship with light weapons ... we think they were just point defence. That ship couldn't take the heat, but we can. Also notice the drones moving around the outside-- the damage was taken quite recently. The hypergate has been damaged, so it can't flee to hyperspace."

"The nuclear damper was up when the survey ship found the station, and it allowed us to date the station: it's the last model that the haldor built."

Garzo stands up in excitement, his enthusiam apparent even with an alien face and googles over his eyes: "Its a relic of the last war! a military installation! that means we have a shot at the big stuff."

Haja: "Yes, our goal here is high-end haldor military technology. I will remind all of you, particularly our outside contractors, of our hopes for this technology. We hope to obtain it for the HTRL, exclusively if possible. If that is not possible, we want it in the hands of a human government, or failing that, we want to destroy it. Under no circumstances should the melnat get their hands on it."

After a brief pause, Haja continues:

"We are expecting company on this trip. The survey ship that found SH-89 (the station) did not report directly to us, nor are we the sole buyer of this information. The implications will be seen by other groups, and they will head for it as well. In addition, the ship that damaged the station in the first place seems to have escaped, and no military ships have recently reported in at Sigus, which indicates the ship either belonged to pirates or reported into a different star system-- most likely melnat. I remind you again: We wish the technology to get into either our hands or the hands of a human government we can trust. We should be willing to work with some of our competitors-- but we don't want to if we don't have to."

"Headquarters will try to send backup as soon as possible -- we are going to secure the tech we can before anyone else can get to it. Unfortunately, with how nicely hyperspace is behaving, pretty much everyone is going to take the same amount of time to get to SH-89, regardless of how good their navigator or even their drives are. Which means that despite having a galactic class navigator on board, we don't have much of a speed advantage, and will probably have to withdraw before they can show up."

"Also, as a reminder, the tech we value the most is the anti-damper field tech. Also, be sensitive to anything that might be genetic engineering: this station is in the right age range to catch the explosion of that before the haldor died off, even if its not as likely to be aboard a military installation"

"Those of us working for the HTRL are on hazard pay (double) for the month. The contractors have their deals. Incentives have been offered for especially good success:"

The screen changes, and presents the following chart:

Working Reproducible Unique Copy: +50,000$
Unique Complete plans: +12,000$
Unique Theoretical Document: +7,500$
Unique Partial Plans with methodology: +3,000$
Unique Partial Plans without methodology: +1,200$
Unique Technical Document: +750$

Core Target Technologies x2
Specialized Technology x1
Narrow Military Technology x1
Narrow Civilian Technology x.6

"In addition, I will divide up proceeds from stasis pods and AI hardware among those responsible for such acquisitions."

Maria looks confused: "Why the bonuses? We are all dedicated to the cause--"

Haja: "The stakes are high, and the boys up top want to make sure we have a good incentive to stick together-- most of the time we don't work with tech that can be sold on the black market with ease. And remember we have contractors working with us this time-- we'd like to encourage them to do a good job."

Haja: "Any other questions?"

[Poonbahbah]

Ophelia pays attention to the briefing but doesn't ask any additional questions.

[Refplace]

Since Co
Bat seems likely is there another doctor on board or am I the only one?
I would like to review everyone's medical history to prepare and I did not bring supplies for working on a pa hekki or engineer ant so I hope the ship has that covered.

[ericthered]

The big captain (Rulon Lan) of the ship speaks up:
"Marli and I are both trained in rudimentary medical care. Not just first aid either. Its standard for ship pilots: we get people in trouble when we're 10 days from our destination. we can handle most things."

Dr. Smith has dealt with survey ship medicine before: it can handle the 90% of medical instances and delay the last 10% long enough to get to a real doctor. The two of them will be lacking in experience as well.

Garzo growls: "I know first aid, as does Ashley. Actually, I think she's on par with the pilots. So we have a doctor, three capable assistants, and me."

Aunt Ann's chassis beeps, and her screen flashes new words: I always bring equipment for my medical safety supplies with me. I will send you their location. But I think it is best if I stay out of combat

Garzo: "I believe we packed supplies for every one with non-human needs. I know I approved some special ones coming on board, and I know mine are on board. And yes, We'll want to keep those with out combat experience out of combat. I know most of you are trained with weapons, but most of you haven't seen combat. His goggles glance at Zariq, wearing the military uniform. My self, Azarola, Ashley, and Dr. Smith are the only ones I want on the front line. And thats final! Zariq, you haven't seen combat, and if you're a proper soldier sit down and take your orders!"

he snaps the last part as Zariq stands up to object. Zariq sits down with fire flashing in his eyes.

Rulon Lan: "We have a system for looking up medical records, Dr. Smith. I can show you how it works after the meeting."

For both Ashley and Dr. Smith is a health summary of the crew. I've extracted the game relevant info.

Spoiler:  

the health estimate is a combination of HT and fitness: a HT 11 very unfit person registers at -1, a HT 9 fit person at 0, and a HT 12 person at 2.
overweight does not correspond to the disad, but to being too heavy for their build. often indicates a lack of fitness

Rulon Lan (captain):
Health -1, night blindness, overweight
Zariq Dritmak(navigator):
Health 0
Anthon Tolsa(mechanic):
Health -1, Suffers from depression
Marli Amonsa (pilot):
Health -1, space-sickness
Aunt Ann (nano expert):
Health -2, Engineer Ant-- different medical gear.
Pikkuki ukogi (statis expert):
Health 1, Pakkcheki -- most human stuff works but additional complications common
Maria Randez (hyperspace expert):
Health -1, overweight
Garzo (security):
Health 1, takes medication every 6 hours, or will start internal bleeding, Teleb -- most human stuff works
Haja Atif (team leader):
Health -1, overweight
Ashley (archaeologist)
Health 0. Just that crazy eye!
Dr. Smith (Doctor)
Health 1
Ophelia Spanner (Engineer)
Health 0
Astraea Azarola (Hacker)
Health 2

[LemmingLord]

Ashley looks to the image... she struggles with the voices in her head, memories from the past, to remember anything about the space station. That set them going... searching...

"I don't like it. How sure are we that this is actual footage?"

Is the Sigus system in controlled space? If so, who controls it? What else is nearby the coordinates of contact?"

What is the current political and geographic situation in the Sigus system?

Did Haldor space stations often have hyperspace capabilities? I thought stations tended to be, i dunno, stationary. :)

Ashley thinks outloud, "We should consider get recent navigation information from its AI... It is possible that SH-89 came from somewhere else... perhaps a planetoid with additional artifacts.."

What does Ashley know about the last war? Please correct me if I'm wrong here, as Ashley will add some relevant history about the last war, "The Haldor were more advanced than us, but the war ended with complete end of their lives through a genetic plague. We might find stasis chambers with Haldor in temporal suspension.... but they may be holding the plague in suspension as well... we need to be careful when we get on the ship we don't unleash something on us..."

"How fast can we get there? We need to work fast if we are going to get there and get our salvage on before other ships arrive. Not just competitor ships like the Melnat scum.. but this could be some kind of local pirates who have no idea what they are dealing with..."

"Ideal situation: we come out of hyperspace near the station, we convince the station to treat us as friendly, we take control of the station, we get their hyperspace working, we take it into space with more friendlies..."

"Least ideal success: we have to take the station by force, losing valuable time, we set it to explode, take what we can and set it to detonate to take some of those Melnat #($*heads out with it..."

Maria looks confused: "Why the bonuses? We are all dedicated to the cause--"

Ashley takes note of her new roommate's alleged dedication to the cause.

Garzo: "I believe we packed supplies for every one with non-human needs. I know I approved some special ones coming on board, and I know mine are on board. And yes, We'll want to keep those with out combat experience out of combat. I know most of you are trained with weapons, but most of you haven't seen combat. His goggles glance at Zariq, wearing the military uniform. My self, Azarola, Ashley, and Dr. Smith are the only ones I want on the front line. And thats final! Zariq, you haven't seen combat, and if you're a proper soldier sit down and take your orders!"

He snaps the last part as Zariq stands up to object. Zariq sits down with fire flashing in his eyes.

Ashley is torn and amused here. She is flattered that the new security guy Garzo has so much confidence in her. It is true she had seen plenty of combat... And she remembered it all... But she had no desire to add any more bad memories...

Haja: "Any other questions?"

(I'm not sure which of my questions above came before or after Haja asked for questions. If my questions are in quotes, Ashley asked them at the meeting. If not, I want to know what Ashley already knows. )