Annabel stopped, staring at him.

Shubai was dead? And Sam too..? The very concept knocked her for six.

"R-right... I'll... head down there. Meyrink was..? But..." The spacer stammered, processing. She shook it off a moment later and turned round, cursing the morons who put the bridge at the front of the ship in her head as she ran down towards the Engineering section.

-- Engineering -->

"Master Farhenra has been searching the ship for the Commander, but so far..." He doesn't seem to want to finish that thought.
"Shipwide comms are down, as you've likely noticed. It's made coordinating our efforts difficult."

Luthar poked his head up momentarily, "I'm...I'm sorry to hear we lost crewmen."  He didn't have much to add, he didn't want to think to much about it.  The drones didn't become hostile until he tried jamming them, so was it possible this was his fault?  He shook the idea from his head and went back to work on the station he was at.

18:52, Today: Luthar An'bhaird rolled 7 using 2d6. Another Perception cheeeeeck!

He continued moving the mass of wires in front of him, hoping that if there was something unusual, he'd be able to spot it.  Knowing full well though, that someone might have to go behind him.

So far, you've found nothing. Both of you pick through various components, but nothing seems out of place.

"There's something else... I haven't seen Pilot Eastfall since before the attack..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:58, Mon 11 Feb 2013.

Maire wandered her way onto the bridge after Luthar, but remained out of the way. "Missing Crewmen... especially the commander. Dead crewmen... deithe... what have we gotten ourselves into?" She asked herself. She quickly pulled herself together and stood up straighter, quickly heading over to the man who had said that Master Farhenra was looking for the Commander. "I could help him locate her, and possibly the missing pilot. Seeing as right now all I'm good for is looking for things, that seems to be the best decision. Where has he already looked? So I don't cover areas that have already been covered." She asked.

"Master Farhenra moved directly from the Bridge to Engineering.  With comms down, we don't know exactly where he is or what he has done since then.  Engineering is also where we found Janus Meyrink; perhaps you will be able to retrace his steps."
Taking hold of a light, Justor moved back into the innards of the Sensor Station, his jaw clenched a bit.
"One hopes his steps will not lead you to the Commander..."

That seemed to be all Justor had to say on the matter, as he turned his attention fully to combing the inner workings of his equipment for monitoring or sabotage equipment.

OOC
16:27, Today: Justor Reson rolled 9 using 2d6+2. Perception Check it up!

"Let's hope. Let's certainly hope not." Maire muttered as she turned and left the bridge. Before she went far though she quickly went back to the SHuttle to see if Dizzy was still there. She might be needed as well.

To The Shuttle

The pilot? Luthar stood from where he was and walked over to the pilot's seat.  "I know this part of the Bridge the best....I'll search here...." He started combing through the wiring and controls, and anything he could get his hands on.  Last thing he wanted was the pilot's chair affected....


19:49, Today: Luthar An'bhaird rolled 5 using 2d6. Perception check...again!

Luthar, you still don't find anything after a lot of searching.

Justor, you notice a strange little dark blue torus, blinking quietly from underneath the main buffer interlay. Upon closer inspection, it's been sloppily soldered into the circuit... and it sticks out now that you've got it in front of you.

OOC:Really though, you should (all) be rolling this less often, searching everything takes a while. Rolling a 5 doesn't mean you KNOW you rolled a 5 right? You're not even certain there IS something to find, just that there might be.

"So, what's the plan once we clean up Meyrink's mess? We going back planet side, or are we jumping elsewhere, putting this bad luck behind us?" Luthar didn't look up while he spoke.  He just kept searching.  His hands ran along the controls, and the seat where he'd sat once, remembering that feeling of damn near loosing his lunch after the spike drill.


OOC:I think we just enjoy rolling dice. :)

"I couldn't say, really. It's going to depend on what the Commander thinks. Or Master Farhenra..."

Justor spies the little blinking blue light, and pulls himself closer to the circuit it seems to be coming from, disappearing a bit deeper into the console.  At the sight of the sloppy soldering job, Justor frowns slightly, muttering to himself in Jazryzik.
"Tam vy, Soet."
He reaches out from under the console, feeling about for one of the tools atop display.
"I believe I have found something."

Wheee Dice!  I'll tone it down.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:30, Tue 12 Feb 2013.

You reconsider for a moment.

You don't know what this is. It could be a bomb for all you know. Cutting it loose without some examination might not be a good idea...

Poking his head out from a swathe of cables and conduits, the junior comms officer looked over to the console where the science officer noted his discovery. He would have sprang up and ran over, but he was waist deep in fibres, having been meticulously checking for some kind of physical evidence of tampering.

"Wh.. what have you found?" the softly spoken lad asked apprehensively.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:10, Wed 13 Feb 2013.

Before Justor could take any tools to the thing, his better sense took hold, and he realized that tampering with it prematurely may cause more damage than it fixed.  Instead, Justor grabbed a magnification tool and brought it under the console, using it to inspect the circuit board more closely.  He heard Aloysius' question and answered after a few long moments.
"I am not sure, but it appears to be something that was added haphazardly to the console electronics.  I would remove it, but something tells me that doing so may be a poor idea.  It is unlikely whoever put this here would want to be found out."

Thoroughly excited by what Reson was reporting to have found, Logan hurriedly returned the fibres and cables to their housings and conduits before quickly scooting over to crouch behind the science officer and lay his eyes upon the strange addition to the circuitry.

[Private to GM:
- Does the blue torus device resemble anything Ludo is familiar with?
-- Does it look like Indari technology?
- Does Ludo have a passive scanner or similar equipment to use to identify what it's doing?]

It doesn't look alien. After some staring and scanning you determine it is not explosive, but it IS bypassing one of the main data gridlines....

OOC: I need a postech use check to figure out what it might be without opening it up and potentially breaking it.

After a few moments of inspection, Justor lets out a short breathe.
"Doesn't appear immediately dangerous...but this orientation..."
He was directly poking or prodding at the thing any longer; now his mind was at work, turning the thing over and over in his head, trying to deduce the purpose of the device based off it's design and positioning.

21:27, Today: Justor Reson rolled 12 using 2d6+2. PostTech Roll.

You finally realize what it is. Of course, the torus shape and positioned beneath the science console...

[Private to Justor Reson: It's a sub-wave transmitter, designed to piggyback off the local shipwide comm and... feed information into the console.

You realize that this could make you see anything it wanted. Currently, it's nonfunctional since the comms are down but...]

It was a flash of realisation that swept Reson's face. Though it still hadn't quite dawned on Logan.

With Reson's discovery of evidence of tampering, this strange device crudely soldered into the circuitry of the science console, Logan quickly made his way to a functional computer console and started digging through logs. Looking for the last mention of repairs and maintenance performed on the console, and who was on the bridge at the time it was performed... If there was some detail in the logs that added evidence to the saboteur's activities, it could only be a good thing to have in One's possession. Not only that, but perhaps there was enough information to follow a trail to identify other potentially compromised locations or equipment.

Luthar listened intently as the crew spoke about what they had found.  He couldn't really make heads or tails of most of what he was looking at.  I should have Dizzy teach me something so I at least know what this is supposed to look like. He chuckled slightly to himself, as he moved up from the floor, seating himself in the pilot seat.  He flicked through the controls, curious to see how the ship was doing, other than the obvious mess of what he saw, hoping he could gather some kind of info, hoping that the computers weren't down entirely.

"Do we know how long till comms are back up?"  He was trying to make some conversation, perhaps make these tasks move along a bit faster if he had something else to focus his attention on.


17:45, Today: Luthar An'bhaird rolled 11 using 2d6+2. Pilot check. [Private to The Void: Essentially I'm looking to see if there was anything that Janus messed with outside of just pulling a bunch of wires and shutting the comms down.  This is probably a bad idea, but whatever. I've gotten out of worse already. ^.^]

[Private to GM: 11:23, Today: Aloysius Logan rolled 11 using 2d6+02. Postech. <<< This is for my last post, about digging through the logs.
11:36, Today: Aloysius Logan rolled 3 using 2d6. Perception - of log data. OOC: Yikes :P maybe a +1 for intelligence? Or maybe ignore the roll for a noob? xD]

Ludo's console beeped as his adept fingers danced across the screens. Sometimes he wished he could just port directly into the computer... a direct link from his neural pathways to the ship's computer would allow him to work as fast as his mind moved. Alas, his fingers, though quick, would often bring his inner-tensions to boiling-point - especially in situations where time was not on his side.

"Standby." he replied to the pilot.

At the pilot's query, his left hand shot across to a nearby screen and it performed a ship-wide systems query, almost purely from muscle memory. Logan looked down to monitor the results of the systems query. [Private to GM: I assume system report is standard operation, not requiring a roll.
- long range scanners working?
- short range scanners?
- comms systems?
- hull integrity?
- life support?
- escape pods?
- weapons + shields?
- anything else as / standard

Based on comms system results, Ludo would try estimate a time until shipwide comms were back up - to answer the pilot. He would factor into the equation the potential of needing to identify and remove the weird device Reson found.]

"Sir," Logan turned to Donell as he waited for the results, <Green>"is your personal Compad operational?"</Blue>
This message was last edited by the player at 21:09, Wed 13 Feb 2013.

Luthar slipped into the pilots harness again, naturally lying on the bed of cushioning plastics around the gravity pod intended to keep him from being effected by drastic changes in velocity. He queries the system and tests the flight controls.

[Private to Luthar An'bhaird: You realize that all though you COULD manuever the ship like this, you wouldn't be able to see anything since navigation is down. Long range sensors are up, but that's like trying to fly while wearing binoculars. Plus, attitude thrusters are all you have; main engines are down.]

Aloysius "Ludo" Logan fired off some commands... and got a disappointing response.

ERROR: CONNECTION OFFLINE - NO ENDPOINT DETECTED

Of course, ships comms being offline means the datacore is inaccessible and all but rudimentary systems were inaccessible. The whole network had been cut or shut down.

What you get from the bridge processor is minimal, but useful.

[Private to Aloysius Logan: -Long range sensors online
-Short range sensors offline
-Comms systems online
-Shipwide network offline
-Hull Integrity unknown
-Life support unknown
-Weapons offline
-Main engines offline
-Spike drive offline

This ship does not have escape pods nor does anyone have "Shields" such a thing has never been practical or even been demonstrated, though it's been tried often enough.

You estimate... full restoration? Without a dry dock? Impossible. Restoring systems to a state where mission could be continued with mininal impact... at least a week.]

The light of recognition sparked in Justor's eyes as he inspected the torus, but the small victory was so heavily tempered by earlier events that Justor couldn't bring himself to be excited.  In fact, the implications of what he just found made the day a good deal worse.
"This...this is a sub-wave transmitter.  I had assumed that any sabotage might be designed to spy or steal information, but this is designed to feed falsified sensor readings."
Justor rubbed his eyes as the full scope of their situation settled in.
"Everything we have detected since embarking is questionable.  It could have been falsified at any time; it might have been falsified all along."

He pulled himself out from under the console and sat back in the chair, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtful.
"This is problematic.  This device requires our Comm systems to be active in order to receive the falsified sensor readings.  As soon as we reactivate them, our status will be broadcast back, and our sensor readings will be completely unreliable."
A thought occurred to him after a moment, and he looked to Donnel.
"Astra Prime Donnel, would you be able to trace any erroneous Sub-Wave Signals being received by this device?  This may be our only clue as the perpetrators of this fiasco."

Logan mumbles something akin to swear words then clears his throat awkwardly.

"Uh, An'bhaird?" Logan called out loudly to the pilot. "I can confirm intership comms are down until the shipwide network can be repaired, in Engineering. Couldn't tell you how long until that might take until I assess the damage first-hand."

The wiry man sighed before continuing.

"Every other major system is offline or status unknown - including the spike drive."

Logan taps the bridge processor with an idle finger. "Long range sensors and external comms are operational though." Logan concludes with volume, hoping Donell would hear this interesting tidbit.

Logan's brow furrowed and he pouted in confusion. "That's strange... wh- why weren't those systems crippled too..." he asks himself, as he tries to manipulate the bridge processor to discover any signals coming in or out of the Shackleton. [Private to GM: One final attempt to sweep the frequencies to see if there are any signals coming in and/or out of the ship.

]

OOC: just tweaked this post to indicate Logan would need to get down to engineering to determine the extent of the damage.

[Private to GM: EDIT: Also perform a long range scan for other ships in the system... If the internal shipcomms are down, then that blue thing can't feed us any false data... right?]
This message was last edited by the player at 21:13, Wed 13 Feb 2013.