Star Brigade: A 53rd Century Adventure RP

[Soviet Heavy]

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The transport safely docked on the ship, Tom felt it was time to leave the bridge. Motioning for Lisa to unseal the bulkhead, he activated the entry panel. Immediately outside the bridge, Commander Cerise blocked his path. Behind her, Til, Brian and Mae followed at a distance. She wasn't happy. The towering Crelm moved slowly towards him, the long gait adding menace to her already impressive size. Tom cowered, moving backwards.

"Thomas Anderson, I grow tired of this tedious inspection, so I will ask you once, as you appear to be the only one here on the bridge: WHERE IS CAPTAIN VANCE?"

Tom stammered out a response. "Well, umm, you see, haha, err.... he's not..... here."

The translator added a tinge of exasperation to Cerise's simulated voice. "Well I can see that, obviously. That is why I am asking you. If he is not here, where would he be?"

"Is that a question I can opt out of?" he muttered.

"No, it is a command. Tell. Me. Now."

"If I may interject, Commander, Captain Vance is currently down in the docking bay, attending to a "glitch" in my programming." said Lisa, adding a mockup of static to her image.

"Ah, so this is the defective Artificial Intelligence then? That would explain the light show a few minutes ago. How can I be sure that you are telling the truth, and not malfunctioning?"

"If you will give me one moment, I can bring him up on visual." Lisa disappeared from the screen, before an image emerged of Captain Vance, overseeing a work team going over the Corona 1.

"Ah, Commander Cerise, good to see you. I'm very sorry that during your inspection I have been otherwise occupied. I apologize if my assistants I left with you did not perform to your expectations." said Vance.

"Expectations? Captain Vance, from the moment I stepped onto this ship, I have counted no less than twelve violations of Corps protocol, and seventeen infractions with regards to maintenance. Under your supervision, I am amazed this ship is holding together, without taking into account your rather... creative choice of crew members." the Commander flashed a dirty look at her followers and Tom.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that ma'am." said Vance. "However, I must insist that you allow our mission to go underway. As much as I am honored to have you aboard the Star Brigade, we are running far behind schedule."

"Ah yes, I almost forgot that this mess of a vessel actually had an assignment it was supposed to go on. Had our fleet more ships, I would have simply replaced you with a better suited courier, but we are short on personnel. Very well Captain, I will take my leave. It is more important that your mission commence than an inspection tour. But don't think you are off the hook. Upon completion of your task, you will rendevous with the Alsvior by New Terra, where my charges against you will be leveled. You have my leave."

The Crelm turned on a dime, and promptly marched out of the bridge. Tom turned to Lisa. "What the hell was that? Is that Captain Vance?"

"Negative," said Lisa cheerfully. "My recording software and video manipulation techniques allow me to compose convincing digital replicas. As Crelm do not use visual skills the same way humans do, it was easier to fool the Commander. Captain Vance is still in medical, conversing with Doctor Harris."

Tom turned to the other three. "What is wrong with you!? Why did you let her come to the bridge? She'd have had my head after all the lies I said! Wait, oh my god, when we get back to New Terra, she'll court marshal me for sure! No, nonononono, that can't happen! I don't want it to happen! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

The three watched with pained expressions as Tom convulsed on the floor. He was hyperventilating. Lisa gave a sigh, and snapped her digital fingers. "You may wish to cover your mouth Brian. This chemical mixture is calming to humans, and it may knock you unconscious. Mae and Til will be unaffected, but I don't wish to take any chances."

Tom slowly calmed down, and passed out from Lisa's drugs. The Alsvior pulled away from the Star Brigade, leaving the small ship alone once again, and ready to depart for their first mission.

 

[Tiger Sora]

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Thor entered the bridge. Some concoction of chemicals were in the air and Tom was on the floor. Try as he may to wave it away with his helmet in hand it persistently stayed. "Whats up with the air"? Thor began to cough. "Smells like when a girlfriend of mine dragged me to to a mall". Now curious as his efforts to disperse the offending odor were in vain he decided to why see Tom was on the floor unconscious, he joined the others around him. "So". Thor bit into the apple he'd gotten from the mess. "Whats up with Tom? He's more... horizontal than usual". Seeing the diplomat was still breathing he did nothing to intervene and continued to chew his snack.

 

[JoJo]

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"Captain, Lime has returned from hisandher mission and wishes to speak with you over the video screens"

The Captain looked up from the saboteur's ID and nodded in reply to Lisa. The ethos of the ship being communication, screens were installed in all major rooms including the infirmary and most of the cabins. The medical area was a little more public than he would have liked for such a discussion but he decided against returning to the bridge... he had yet to be informed that Commander Cerise had left the ship.

"Alright, connect us up" Within a couple of seconds, the Crelm's tentacled face materialised on the screen in front of him. "I see you've returned Lime. Did you retrieve the camera?"

 

[JoJo]

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"Very well then, what is it? Remember I'm busy though so try to keep it brief."

As he was saying this Captain Vance looked down at his PDA and silently whooped in joy to see a message saying the Alvisor had just departed from the Star Brigade's ship. He didn't know how the corps had managed to brush off the Commander but he was glad to see the back of her.

 

[JoJo]

snip

"Lisa is right, Lime. It was my decision to allow Kalade to go along on the mission and whether that was the right decision or not, I can hardly discipline her for my own choice. If she did something out-of-protocol on the ground then that's a different matter entirely but until I see the mission report, there's nothing I can do. As for your other complaint, maybe that's down to your ineptness rather than my discipline, remember that they were under your command down there, not mine. We'll have over a week's travel at-least before we reach our first destination, so perhaps now is the time to brush up on your skills?"

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Tom drowsily stumbled to his feet. His head felt like it had been inflated with helium, and strange lights flashed in front of his eyes."Errgh, what just happened?" he mumbled.

"I administered a calming agent to relax your hyperventilation, Mr. Anderson." said Lisa with a smile. "I hope you enjoyed your rest. Some humans find it difficult to sleep on hard, metallic bulkheads, but you seem to have made yourself quite comfortable."

"Right, and the fact that I was high as a kite while you drugged me doesn't play any factor, does it?" he grumbled sarcastically. "Where's the Captain now? Can I talk to him?"

"Captain Vance is currently still in Medical. If you wish, they have an antitoxin there which will remove the drowsiness from your system. You can have it administered while you speak to the Captain."

Snip

Tom lurched down the corridor towards the lifts. Numbly pressing his hand against the console, he somehow managed to hit every floor except for the one he was aiming for. In the end, a friendly ensign offered to carry him there.

Inside, he found Captain Vance, deep in an argument with Lime over the computer console. Lime saluted, and the feed went dead.

"You're a nice fellow, you know that? I really appreciate you dropping me off down'ere. S'reallyanice gesture...." Tom passed out on one of the beds. The ensign shrugged.

"He said he wanted to see you sir, but I don't know if it was the drugs talking or not." The ensign saluted, and marched away, leaving Tom softly rocking back and forth on the bunk. Doctor Harris sighed, and pulled Tom's eyelids apart, flashing a light in them.

"Hmm, it seems like he's suffered a minor overdose. Nothing I can't fix." said Harris, rifling through cabinets. He yelped in satisfaction, pulling out a large syringe. Attaching it to the mechanical arm strapped to the bed, Nate programmed the console. Moving in rapid sequence, the medical arm make seventeen quick injections across Tom's body. He slowly came to.

"Erggh, I really need to find a better way to deal with that damn AI that doesn't end with me being drugged, humiliated, or outsmarted. Captain Vance? I was going to tell you that the Alsvior has disconnected, and the away team is back on board."

"Actually, Mr. Anderson, I informed Captain Vance of this information several minutes in advance."

The look of pain and disgust on Tom's face said it all. "Oh, fuck me." he moaned, lying down on the bed in despair.

 

[JoJo]

[HEADING=1]Chapter One: The two-faced planet[/HEADING]​

.​

Captain Vance sat lazily in his chair, quietly watching the planet Apleeloss through the windows of the bridge. A slow week had passed since the leak aboard the ship and the short mission on Earth, him and his crew fulfilling their roles adequately but otherwise waiting in anticipation for their first real taste of the Diplomatic Corps. Kroann's funeral had been a short but muted affair, few of the crew knew the Schrier well enough to really mourn him. The saboteur's body remained frozen in an infirmary locker, still awaiting a response from the New Terran police.

While not that far from Sol, Kehladd was probably one of the more unique systems that had been discovered so far by S.U. explorers. In the centre lay the sea of the sky: a massive sphere of liquid water the size of several gas giants. There were several planets various distances from the centre but the one the Captain was interested in was Apleeloss, usually half in and half out of the sea. It was a small and pretty tropical world maybe the size of a medium continent on Earth, mostly covered in small islands and shallow seas with a few jungles along with the odd volcano.

Seeing the Captain's interest, Lisa decided to interject with some information stored on her database.

"The important thing to remember about Apleeloss is the planet is on two separate cycles. It has days in the conventional sense as in which side of the planet is facing the local star, about 12 hours, but it also has the nautical day which is the length of time it takes for the planet to revolve on its axis and to complete a whole wet dry cycle, about 5 hours. This is the time between being under and above the surface of the sea."

"That would be interesting Lisa, if that wasn't the third time you've told me those facts today," he grunted "Don't you have more important tasks to attend to?"

"Oh you don't have to worry about that Captain" Lisa replied cheerily "I have more than enough processing power to attend to every crew member on the ship simultaneously."

"Great" Captain Vance replied sarcastically "Well maybe this will keep you busy. Tell every Diplomatic Corp aboard to meet me here in half an hours time for a group briefing. I've just received orders from Commander Cerise, it's time for the first mission."

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Tom yawned, stretching his arms as he awoke from his slumber. Doctor Harris' medication had helped him recover from his panic attack and subsequent drugging a week earlier, but he was still slightly drowsy. Still, they'd made impressive time to Kehladd, only a week by FTL. It was much better than the month long trip it would have taken by jump gates.

The bridge doors slid open for Tom with a hiss. "Morning captain." he mumbled. Tom looked through the viewport with squinting eyes. "Huh, not every day you see a giant ball of water in outer space. So that's Kehladd?"

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

Mae woke abruptly, his suit giving him a subtle shock of electricity to get help him up. He blinked several times, grogginess slowly making it's way past him. His belly ached for food, and so he opened up some of the packets of Light Moss he had for food, each one no bigger than a human toe nail. He slipped some into the socket on his helmet, which sealed the suit on the outside and allowed it to be transferred to his mouth. No need to bathe or get dressed, no cleaning of any kind, he just ate his breakfast and headed to the bridge, stumbling some from his sleepiness.

He opened the door and looked out at the planet they were approaching. Water. He thought with some annoyance.

"I hope we are not expected to swim in these next few days. I'm afraid all my species can do in the water is sink like stones." He half-joked, though in truth, he was afraid of water, like most Mezians. They were built for tunnels and caverns, not rivers and oceans. Mezian boats never existed until they made contact with the outside world, and planes and carriers were the preferred form of transportation.

 

[Bravo 21]

Muokilaxes headed towards the bridge. He was looking forwards to seeing this new system with it's "space sea". Honestly, never having seen the place, he was having a hard time envisioning the concept, but he'd be able to get a better idea once he was on the bridge, maybe see the system from the observation deck. As for the idea of being underwater half the time, that suited him no more than the Mezian he'd heard complaining about it earlier, not that he would admit that to anyone.
Even with some time before the briefing, he headed towards the bridge, he had nothing else to do, the last week had been slow, and he wanted to get a look at this planet they were about to negotiate with.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The Star Brigade swept towards Apleeloss at an incredible rate. Demexin was running the FTL drive just below the speed of light in order to cross the vast nature of the system. Having a single jump gate extension planted in Kehladd made travel between the planets themselves incredibly time consuming. Usually the more heavily populated systems had jump gates between individual planets, and a single large gate connecting to neighboring systems. Out here, ships had to rely on sublight engines to slowly creep around the Sea of the Sky, taking weeks or even months to reach the other side.

The FTL drive managed to counteract this problem. The trip from the Jump gate to Apleeloss took just under four hours, an impressive feat.

 

[TheBlueShotgun0]

James tore his gaze from the book he was reading as the ship dropped back to sub-light speed. He was lying on his bunk in his room and, despite a lack of sleep the night before, was wide awake. He felt the slight but noticeable jerk of the ship as it dropped out of light speed, and marked his page. He set the book now and began to get dressed. He was just buttoning up him uniform when Lisa spoke. "James, the Captain wants you on the bridge".
"I was going there anyway, actually" He responded. "I wanted to get a look at this 'Sea of the Sky' everyone keeps going on about".
"Very well." Lisa said. James mentally rolled his eyes at himself. For some reason he always found himself talking to Lisa like she was a living person, and it bothered him.
James finished putting on his uniform and made his way to the bridge. As the door slide open for him he saw that a couple of the other DC operatives had already gathered around the captain. "Good morning everyone." James exclaimed happily.

 

[JoJo]

The Captain waited patiently until every Diplomatic Corp and several of the more vital support staff arrived at the bridge.

"Good morning," he said cordially "I hope you all read up the notes which were sent round earlier today on Apleeloss. To recap, the location you'll be visiting today is the small colony Crewse, a joint venture between the S.U. and the Durras. Eight days ago, distress signals were picked up by a local trading ship, which were passed on to S.U. authorities in the Horizon system. The original message was incomplete but from what we can tell, some sort of conflict was going on down there. Since there's no native sentients in this system, that means it was either an invasion from else-where... or civil war. The only other intelligence we have is a message recieved yesterday evening by our own ship, which was apparently sent between four and five days ago. Again it's pretty garbled but from what we can tell, a whole group of humans and Crelm are locked down in a facility called Lilia Laboratories, awaiting rescue. I'm going to split you into two teams, one who'll investigate the main colony and the other who'll search the nearby facility for any survivors. I'm not going to lie, it's probably going to be pretty grim down there, but orders are orders. Lisa will explain the mechanics on the planet in more detail when you go down."

The Captain clapped to his hands together to finish the explanation part of the briefing, he couldn't think of anything he had forgotten.

"Any questions, or preferences for which team you'll go with?"

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Tom raised his hand. "What is the day night cycle for this planet? How long will we have before the rotation traps us in the Sea in the Sky? I know that this ship can land on water, but I doubt it's a submarine."

 

[JoJo]

Lisa interjected to answer Tom's question before the Captain had the chance to reply, her face flashing brightly on the screen behind Vance.

"Though Apleeloss is a small planet, due to it's relatively slow rotation speed you will have about 12 hours of daylight and 12 of darkness, at-least where the Crewse colony is based. This similarity to Earth was one of the reasons the S.U. became initially interested in the planet. The sea rotations are shorter, you will have just 5 hours out-of-water before having to shelter in one of the colony buildings for 5 more hours, then the cycle repeats."

"Thanks Lisa" the Captain said somewhat grudgingly, then added "The main ship and the on-board crew, myself included, will be lifting off again as soon as we've dropped you off. We'll be able to land any time at short notice when the sea of the sky isn't over you. Any other questions or requests?"

 

[Bravo 21]

Muokilaxes spoke up "Is there any word on how we are to treat potential hostiles on world?" He was hoping to avoid any incidents like the one on Earth. "Also, should this prove to be an invasion, what are the priorities, are we to observe and report, or take direct action?"