The bridge of CS-8 is the central nerve system of the ship. Computers line the walls, consoles surround the central captain's chair. Holographic starmaps show the vessel's relative location in real time, with all the neccesary
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:13, Sat 04 Mar 2017.

When acting Captain Jennifer Maxwell exits the turbolift, the first thing she notices is the emergency lighting bathing the entire area in a dark red hue. With things hardly visible she manages to stumble towards the forward operations area. Just as she enters, her feet bump into something. Something hard, solid, something that gives way. The sound of something rolling about the floor causes her to stop in her tracks

From: Cryo Chambers

   Acting Captain Maxwell looked at the Bridge area, at least what she could see, which wasn't all that much.  "Marco, increase lighting to normal human level."  She looked down to see what it was that she had bumped into.

Slowly the red lights fade out, being replaced by the bright, cold lights of the ceiling tubes.
The bridge area is small compared to some other areas on the ship, with a central command chair surrounded by a dozen consoles dominating the center of the room. Large duraglass windows provide a look outside and along the ship, it's dark mass nearly invisible against the black of space.

As Jennifer's gaze drifts to the floor at her feet, a cold shock creeps up on her. At her feet there is a mummified body, clad in a standard gray jumpsuit. The floor around it is dark of long dried blood.
The body is missing it's head, having rolled away after being accidentally kicked. It lies a few meters further into the bridge area, at the feet of the big command chair, it's lower jaw crooked in a wry grin. A gaping hole adorns the skull's left temple.


This message was last edited by the GM at 23:42, Tue 07 Mar 2017.

   Maxwell looked at the desiccated corpse.  She began to evaluate the scene.  Most, but not all, suicides place the barrel of their gun in their mouths before pulling the trigger, so the wound placement didn't help her.  She checked the area around the wound for gunpowder stippling, but the condition of the corpse made it impossible without a forensic lab to determine if the wound was a contact wound or had been made by someone who fired at a distance.

   Jen wasn't making a lot of progress in her investigation, but maybe there was a witness.  "Marco, do you know who this person was?  Do you have any records of how this person died?"

   The detective checked to see if the body had anything on it, then checked the area to see if she could find the gun which killed this person.

It seemed to take a moment before the mechanical voice replied.

I cannot comply. Error 127. Playback files inaccessible.

Jennifer quickly scanned the area around the desicated corpse. It had to be dead for at least ten years. Then she spotted a pistol. Problem was it was in the corpse's jumpsuit pocket. A small .22 pistol. There was no way he could have shot himself with that.

Behind Jennifer, the turbolift arrived.

   Jen took a moment to put on the gray socks, tucked the little .22 into the right one, and pulled the pant leg back down to conceal it.  She had examined the wound long enough to know that the bullet hole in the skull was too large to have been made by a mousy little .22 cartridge.  Then there was that whole if you're dead, how do you put your pistol away thing.  Maxwell knew that the person on the floor had been murdered, but she didn't know why... yet.

   Jenni heard the turbolift arrive as she slipped her feet back into the cloth slippers.  The current Captain turned to face the turbolift.

Blake strode onto the bridge.

Marco, is there any chance your date stamp is wrong? Can you tell where...

Blake takes in the scene.

Blake salutes. Sir. What the heck is going on?

Im sorry Blake. My clocks are off by less than point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-two nanoseconds. So the time and date may assume to be correct.
Again the voice sounds slowly. Lower patched too.

   Captain Maxwell returned the salute.  "I'm Captain Maxwell.  I wish I could tell you what has happened, but like you, I slept through it."  She smiled for a moment, but it vanished quickly.  "This unidentified crew member was murdered, but I doubt that we will find out who did it.  The physical evidence is at least ten years old and the computer's data files have been corrupted."

   "For the Marco Polo to be this FUBARed, I suspect that sabotage was involved.  This poor guy was probably murdered by one of the saboteurs."  Maxwell took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "So, who are you and what is your specialty?"

Incoming transmission from cryo chamber.

"  Bridge?  This is LT Kray Shadow.... i'm a Pilot?...Got  with me   Lance Corp Troy Patterson....and Steve Cornell?...Lift isn't working, Marco says  power is  fading, we need ta replace the bleedin' batteries....who's all up there? "

"My Name is Blake Germaine, staff Sergeant. My specialty is programming, especially simulation software. In theory I'm supposed to be modelling planetary atmospheres right now, or maybe fixing the engines. If the fusion batteries have failed, we will need to replace them."

"Marco, can you suggest anything to conserve power? We probably still need heat, and the cryotanks will need power for the cooling for a while, but there must be something. Is the navigation radar still on? That eats power. We can risk not dodging micrometeoriods for a while if we really need the power"

"Certainly the lights are bright enough. Marco, could you cut illumination to 30% of normal please?"

"We could also get by on, say, 80% gravity, at least as people. I hope that doesn't interfere with the plumbing for the cryo tanks. How much power does the artificial gravity use anyway?"

   "With the power fading, Sergeant Germaine, I doubt you will be able to get there to help for now.  See if there's an engineering terminal here.  Maybe you can locate a set of emergency capacitors or some other system in place to power the ship while the batteries are being swapped out.  If you can power the ship from the auxiliary batteries, they will have time to fix this floating freezer."

   Maxwell addressed the others down below.  "Lieutenant Shadow, do what you can to replace the batteries.  We will buy you whatever time we can from up here."

  We'll do what   we can...Steven says he thinks he might be able ta help, if  we can find our way to the engineering place....Me and  Patterson we'll help  him how  we  can.....

I'm going to try to log on to a terminal to buy some more power. There must be something notionally mission critical I would be able to switch off, that hasn't been switched off already.

There are consoles all over the bridge, and soon Germaine finds one with engineering access.
Meanwhile Marco dims the lights.

I cannot access my systems Blake, I am sorry. I have now shut down all lighting across the ship except the route to engineering, bridge and cryo. However, this will not last long. I estimate total system shutdown in 13 hours.

Jennifer meanwhile, still looking over the mummified corpse while adressing the other issues, finds a folded piece of paper in the chest pocket of the rotting grey jumper.
Unfolding it, she sees 4 pod numbers.

CP-125
CP-477
CP-1404
CP-4997

Blake accesses the systems - looks like his login credentials are still good.

He starts looking for something to shut down - or for evidence that Marco has already done it much better than him.

Within seconds of accessing M4RC0-P010 Blake realises there is something terribly wrong. Yes, he can access the terminal, and he can even log in using his own credentials, but instead of the standardised NA submenus, he finds just one program icon on the hub. A simple logo of a sun.

A simple click to open, and Blake is greeted by a song. An old song, at least two centuries old already. He knows the song, because his grandfather used to love the band that made it.

That band was called The Doors.
The song's name... The end.

A digital counter starts on all consoles along the ship. Its a countdown from 60 minutes.

Blake sits down and starts hacking into the terminal. He seems perplexed, working solidly and stopping to say "ahh of course" several times as if he's forgotten the world's most obvious fact.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:11, Wed 08 Mar 2017.

Blake continues to work on the terminal, trying to access the main systems through the macro program.

   Jen looks for a terminal to activate in order to see who is occupying the four cryo pods listed on the paper.  She also takes a few moments to examine the salvaged .22 pistol to see if it is in usable condition.

Blake tries to shutdown the decontamination program before telling anybody about it - he doesn't need the distraction.


Second attempt.

With Blake working hard to gain entry into the ship computers, Jenn looks up the cryo pods. She finds the four, and to her surprise the logs show them empty.

The salvaged pistol could use a good oiling, but should work.

The clock creeps down slowly.

   Jen uses the computer to try to see where the four pods are located among the other cryo pods.  She replaces the .22 in her right sock and slips the note with the pod numbers into her left sock.

Blake tries his best, but the security protocols protecting the decontamination program are just too strong.
He does however find a backdoor way to stop it. Shut down the fusion reactor. There will be no leftover gass, so no decontamination.
The plus side is that he does manage to access the ventilation system.

Jennifer learns the pods are scattered about the cryo hall.

   Jen knew that the newly awakened people wouldn't have anything to work with for tools, since they weren't chilled with any.  She had an idea of how to help them and even if it was a long shot, it was the only shot in the locker at the moment.  She keyed her personal link.

Blake tries to stop the fans.

"At the end of that countdown, the ship will flood with fusion gasses and kill us all. This seems to be software sabotage. I can't shut it off, the only thing I can see to do about it is shut off the fusion reactor, but I don'the know how long people in cryogenic storage last without power."

Cryo pods have their own back-up energy Blake. They can go a year without a constant supply of power.

Blake shuts down the fusion reactor.

"Let's see what else has backup power. Come on emergency lights."

Blake shuts down the reactor. All over the ship power goes off. Lights. Airconditioning. Computers. It all stops working.
As does the computer right in front of him.

   The shutdown and resulting blackout caught Jenni by surprise.  "Ummm...  You meant to do that, right?"

"Yes. At least this way the decontamination protocol won't kill us all by flooding the ship with fusion gasses. Although I was hoping for the bridge to have some kind of auxiliary power or backup."

Blake wanders around this bridge, carefully in the dark, looking for some means of making light. Even if the station he was using doesn't have backup power, perhaps some of the others do.

By the time Blake finds his way in the dark, the emergency lighting on the bridge starts up. Soft toned, red, but enough to see by. The computer consoles all remain off, and will stay that way untill the fusion reactor restarts. This restart can only be achieved at the reactor core itself, in the engineering room.

With hardly anything else to do but wait for now, Blake stares out the huge window that seperates the bridge from the great expanse.
There seems to be nothing there. No flying rocks or debris, no junk as was so common around earth. No planets, and most certainly no sun. Just distant stars. Stars he does not recognise. Not a single familiar constellation.

 For sure wherever they are, it is not Alpha Centauri, or anything even remotely close to that.

   Captain Maxwell moved up to the window.  There wasn't all that much else to do at the moment.  Her soft voice sounded louder than it should on the powerless bridge.  "Damn.  I was hoping that we had been orbiting some big rock in Alpha Centauri all this time.  Once Shadow gets the batteries changed and you get the power restored, maybe we can find out why things happened instead of just dealing with what happened."

After about three hours of waiting and staring the team in engineering seem to have come through. Suddenly all lights come on, computers start up, and the airconditioning starts buzzing. The ship has come back to life.

"We have power again."

Blake tries to check whether the decontamination program is still running.

Blake finds minute traces of the program, which is very busy deleting itself. It is no longer running, but instead it is covering up its own tracks in the systems.
As soon as M4RC0 starts up, it will be erased completely and no longer traceable.

"I'm trying to find out who wrote this, but it's deleting itself using marco's systems as it starts."

Blake leaves Marco running, because he has no means of explaining to the people down in engineering why Marco would be down.

"Marco, could you do a systems diagnostic and report on the condition of the ship?

Ship is in excellent condition. All systems functional. At this time we have elven opened pods. Seven crew accounted for. One deceased. Three missing. Our current location is system 336732.97EL. One terraformer is unaccounted for. Two mobiel reactor trucks unaccounted for. One dropship is unaccounted for. Three weapon crates unaccounted for.
Shall I wake the captain and staff?

"I'may just a staff sergeant. Please relay that information to the other crew thar are awake. Do you know where we are in space?"

   Jenni breathed a literal sigh of relief when the power came back on after a few hours.  "Marco, please establish a link to Lt. Shadow."

   "Lt. Shadow, please convey my thanks to your people for a job well done.  You and your people may have picked up trace elements of radioactive material.  All of you need to use the decontamination showers, then report to the sick bay to be checked out.  Again, thank you for saving us all."

   Acting Captain Maxwell was about to work herself out of a job.  "Marco, begin awakening the Captain and crew in an hour."

   Soon to be Lt. Maxwell smiled.  "Staff Sargent, I don't know about you, but I could use a shower and a better fitting uniform.  The Bridge is in Marco's ummm... hands?  Anyway, let's hit the showers."

  ..Thank ya, Ma'am. But I was just part of the Labor.. Mr Cornell guide us,, and  we have another  wake up here... Her Name is Connolly..she's a doc? so..we'll get checled  out fair and proprer...

In reply to Jennifer Maxwell (msg # 42):

"I want to know where we are first. Someone got off this ride, and it would be good to learn when and where they went. Perhaps the logs would show when the missing drops ship was powered on, or last drew maintenance power, or the bay doors were opened."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:02, Sat 11 Mar 2017.

Blake sits down and starts using the terminal.

Dropship left the CS-8 on third of july 2042. Three people on board.

"The dropship left over a hundred years ago, they're gone."

Blake attempts to discover what the nearest star is, and it's distance using the ship'so instruments. There'should probably a program to do it for him.

  "Marco, are we in orbit around a planet in system 336732.97EL?  Do you know how long ago the dropship departed the Marco Polo?"

didn'the pick up on that, sorry. The dropship left on the third of July 2042.

It's 17-2-2187 at the moment, so whoever left died of old age a long time ago, unless they had coldsleep gear.

   Maxwell smiled.  "That would definitely make this a cold case file.  The Captain and his regular staff will be awakening soon.  I want a shower and a uniform that doesn't feel like a sausage casing.  I could also use something to eat and drink.  Marco is back on line.  Finish up here and I'll meet you at the decon showers on the cryo deck.  I want to check on one final thing first."


To: Cryo Deck
This message was last edited by the player at 04:48, Sun 12 Mar 2017.

Blake, the nearest star would be Brenner 82, a gas giant of medium size. It has a small area of 'habitable' conditions in which a planet with four moons resides. It is at a distance of .34 lightyears, and could be reached in two months. Would you like to plot a course?


This message was last edited by the player at 04:42, Sun 12 Mar 2017.

No, plotting a course is for the captain. I'don't better get to the decontamination showers.

Blake heads down to cryogenic.

Showered, uniformed and with a sidearm, Blake sits down at the terminal, and tries to work out what's happened.

As Blake sits down to work on the computer, trying to figure out who or what sabotaged M4RC0, he hears the all too familiar click of a gun being loaded through. A voice from behind him greets him not all that friendly.
"Mind telling you who the fuck you are? Why is there a mummyfied body on the floor of Captain Dorn's bridge, and explain kindly what you are doing here before I decide you are an unwanted guest and finish things off real quick?"
Jan VanderBeek steps from the shadows, the barrel of the SA-80X casually trained at Blake's seat.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:44, Sun 12 Mar 2017.

"Hmm. Let me see. We don't know who the dead guy is. One of the dropships is missing, so I'don't guess whoever killed him left the ship in 2042, around the time we were scheduled to be in the alpha centauri system. I'm Blake Germaine, staff sergeant and programmer. Currently I'm trying to figure out who hijacked the ship."

After a little more thought, he adds "Hey Marco, could you give this guy a datestamp please?"

After listening to Marco stating the current date, VanderBeek stares at Blake in shock for a moment. He places the SA-80 on a desk and sits down to think.
"So you are telling me someone left this ship in 2042, killed this guy, and then sent us forward for another 115 years? Marco, wake the captain, now! You work on getting that intell. My name is Jan by the way. Jan VanderBeek. Morale officer, technically a civilian, but part of the upper staff. Who else is awake?"

"Something like that. I've only been awake for a little while myself, but there was definitely some sort of traitorous action. The ship had been set to decontaminate the entire ship with fusion gasses, no more than an hour after the ship's systems were first accessed. We had to switch off the fusion reactor to stop it, the program was written in at the system level and I couldn't shut it off any other way."

"I wasn't able to find out who created or set the program, and both it and the corruption of the marco ship's ai self deleted when engineering finished replacing the fusion batteries and repowered the ship."

"I don't actually know who else is awake. There was Jenifer, who appointed herself acting captain, that was a good move I think, we needed one. There were two or three voices on the end of the intercom, but I only met one of them briefly. One fighter pilot, and an engineer. "

"Anyway, were definitely in 2187, I even checked whether Marco's dates could be off. The nearest system was described as a gas giant with some habitable worlds, although I'm not too sure what they mean by gas giant. 0.27 light year Marco said. Apart from that ship's systems appear to be functioning normally, which is a blessing given their age."

On Hearing the announcement by Captain Dorn, Blake says "We'd better head on over. There's no value in being late."

Blake heads over to the conference room.

"Yes, lets head out indeed. The captain will probably not be amused." VanderBeek follows Blake out, leaving the rifle.

Coming from his quarters at double pace, Captain Dorn takes just enough time to have a look at the bridge. Soaking up the smell, the feel, of his bridge, he tried to remember the names of all the young men and women making up his bridge crew.
He came halfway. A lot better than after just waking up. It was slowly coming back to him. It should, he had handpicked each one of them. No good for a captain to forget their names. Luckily he knew he had the cryo to blame for that.
His gaze fell upon an armed marine on his bridge, standing near the weapons consoles. At his feet, a mummified corpse, its head at the foot of his command chair. Well trained as they were, his bridge crew just worked around it, shooting the occasional worried glare in the corpse's direction.

"What is the meaning of this soldier? Why is this still here?" He would have to talk to Ascott later. Maybe to Maxwell too. This wouldn't do.

The marine jumped at the ready, answering matter-of-factly.
"Order of Major Ascott captain. Crime scene. It won't be cleared untill CIS clears the scene sir."

"Have it removed. Now!" Dorn shook his head. Not a good way to start a day, let alone a new lifetime. He paced away quickly as the marine spoke softly into his comm, not even waiting for confirmation. This was starting out to be a lousy day indeed. He had better get to medical.

Blake enters the bridge, finding a suitable terminal available immediately. Using the ship's instruments, he identifies multiple galaxies, and matches the patterns against a known galaxy map.  The next step is to find some of the brightest stars in distant space. They will be considerably out of line, as even bright, relatively distant stars like canopus would be moved considerable across the sky from their positions on earth, but the spectrum of the stars should cut it down to a few stars for each star relatively easily.

Blakes sets up a simulation of where these bright stars will be in space relative to earth

Finally, he stars trying to work out the current location by checking the spectra of of very blue (ie large) stars against his simulation. This step is somewhat manual, lacking a specific algorithm for it, and will likely take a considerable time period - a few hours to a day or more, and Blake will break for sleep if needed. It should, however, be possible to verify his supposition against the simulated location of the massive stars, so it should be possible to check whether a particular proposed position is correct, to a very good reliability.

While Blake works hard to figure out where the hell CS-8 ended up after 115 years, a young technician stands near him. Silently she is looking over his shoulder, taking notes on a portable pad she carries.
She does not disturb him, but just stands there, trying to discern what it is he is doing.

Blake gives no sign of responding to the note making person, but carefully locks his screen whenever he goes to the John. Finally, getting towards 11pm at night, he decides to call it a day and heads back to the barracks to wolf down some food and sleep.

Dorn entered the bridge, finding only a skeleton crew because of the late shift, and sat down in his comfortable Captain's chair. A relic from his submarine days, he had the chair brought on and installed a few weeks before departure, the only demand he had made, and the only concession GNA had allowed him.
He and the chair went way back. It had been his seat on the HMS Dreadnought, and it fit him like a glove. A tight glove now that he got older, but it was his chair, and he took it with him when Dreadnought was decommissioned in 2031. Assigned to the Polo then, he had taken the old leather seat with him as a badge of honor.

As he sat down in it now, nearing midnight, with only the vast black expanse around him, he felt at home for the first time since being woken up.
Most likely because now, for the time since having been awakened, he had the idea they were getting ahead. Finally they knew where they are, and where they were going.

"Helm, update the systems with the information Staff Sergeant Germaine just transferred. Adjust ship data to account for our new position."

He flipped a switch on the console next to his arm rest.

"Donk shop, I want those engines up and running in an hour!"

Now that the Bridge is up and running, at least a little, Blake finds he has to salute new faces repeatedly before taking up his post. Time to test out those new authorisations.

After just a bit of digging Blake manages to retrieve several security files that had been carefully hidden, but not deleted.
Watching them he is treated to images of a man sitting on the bridge, at the very desk he is sitting. The man works hard on something, but the camera angle is off and Blake cannot see what. Then another man comes walking in, and the first one closes down the systems. He then gets up to leave.
As he walks past the second man he is subsequently shot in the back of the head.
Without audio there is no way to find out what exactly happened.

Blake decides to check the timestamps on the video files . Then he will mail the result to Jennifer Maxwell, and ask Marco to alert her to the incoming files with the message: "Is this our murder?"

Checking the time and date on the file reveals it to have been just a day before the CS-8 continued its journey out of the Alpha Centauri system, and into the unknown.
The man being shot can only be the mummy they found on the deck. A quick zoom in on his jumpsuit even reveals his name. Green, F.
With just a few buttons Blake transfers the file to Lt. Maxwell, confident he at least found video footage of the murder. Could the audio possible be hidden too instead of deleted?

Blake looks for the audio matching the video .

Blake soon finds the specific audio file, and with a bit of tweaking matches the sound with the moving lips in the video.
Soon he can play the whole file as it was originally.

* sound of keys on computer*

* Voice off screen: You about done fred?*

* Man at computer (Fred?): Yeah, just this last wipe, and they'll never know what happened.*

* Voice off screen coming on, belongs to second man: The hippo is waiting, we need to go.*

* (Fred?): Chill out Amir, five more minutes wont matter.*

* Sounds of keystrokes on computer*

* (Fred?): There, done. Soon as they start waking, the ship starts counting down. If they ever wake up, I'm sending her to the Cygnus X-1.*

* Second man: The black hole? Nice touch.*

* (Fred?): You guys better have my money when we return though.*

* Sound of chair being pushed back, man standing up*

* Second man: Oh you will get what's coming to you buddy.*

* Sound of gunshot

* Second man: Amir to Hippo, I'm coming down. We have all we need.*

Blake forwards the audio to Jenifer. Then, he checks whether we're near Cygnus x-1

Due to the deviation because of a broken engine Cygnus X-1 is not anywhere near the Polo. Even had the engines not been damaged the vessel would not have reached the Cynus black hole for at least a hundred years more.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:30, Sun 09 Apr 2017.

Digging through the files, Blake finds more misplaced partitions. They all seem to be hangar footage, namely hangar 3, but they are pretty scrambled up.

"Course set captain!"

"Engineering reports engine at one hundred percent Captain!"

"All crew awakened Sir!"

Captain Blake Dorn listened to the various reports of his crew, seated comfortably in his worn submariners chair. He looked at the count-down clock to his left above the military section of consoles. T minus seventy-two minutes.
For the umpteenth time he pulled up his charts. Four days. Four days should be all it took to get to the system he had selected. Kepler-Waldberg 118. Sixteen planets. Sixteen chances.
The best bet they had so far. If none of them qualified as a colony option they would need another year to get to the nearest habitable planet. Sixteen chances. It should be enough. It had to be.

"Have the new awakenings report to their various stations as soon a possible. I want the Polo at full strength before that counter reaches zero. Whatever happens, we cast off at 0900 sharp. This drifting about in space isn't usefull."

He checked a few more reports on his own console.

"Comms, send a message out to the last known location of Terra. Transmit our current status and location. It will take a few months to get there, but at least we will have done our best. Lets just pray someone is still there to hear us."

Settling in to the operation of the ship, Blake focuses on unscrambling the video from hanger 3.

Blake works for several hours, before achieving success.

Over the next few hours Blake slowly but steadily manages to piece together three seperate pieces of hangar footage. They are all from 2042. It will take him all morning to get them back to their original size and quality.
Whoever had been trying to cover up all that footage had been slacking, doing not nearly as good a job as rewriting the AI. Had it even been the same hacker?

<<<<<<  From Shadow's Quarters.

    Stepping onto the Bridge, he stops and says,..LT Kray Shadow Reporting, as requested, Catpain? he gives a quick slaute then stands at ease.

Major Ascott looks up from his seat, the worn captain's chair usually reserved for Captain Dorn himself. The Captain himself is nowhere to be seen.
"He's in his quarters, you can go on in, he's expecting you. Oh and Shadow... Try not to get into trouble will you."

  Shadow  Smiles at the Major,..Can't promise that Sir...its how you can tell this is really me! he gives the Major a respectful salute, then  proceeds to the Captain's quarters.


 Buzzing the door COM, he enters....


>>>>>>>>>>> Shadow to Captain's quarters.

AT 0855 the captain sat back in his chair, relieving Ascott of his duties so he could get back to his marines. Having the major as his CIC wasn't ideal, Dorn had decided, but he had to make do for now untill he could assign a descent bridge officer. HE had to get to know them better first.

"Helm, run the last engine checks." His voice was calm, but lined with anticipation. Flying this ship was as new for him as it was for the crew, and they were the ones doing the actual work. Then again, how much different could it be from navigating a watertight tub through an ocean?

"Engines up and running perfectly sir."

Dorn's gaze drifted to the clock. It was almost time.
He flipped his comm switch on his console so the entire ship could hear him.

"Attention all decks. This is the Captain speaking. Those that wish to buckle up had better do so, we will be moving out in one minute."

"Technical, status of the Hawking field?"

"Hawking field at 100 percent sir. She is stable."

The digital clock above the big outside window his 0900.

"CS-8, take us out, full cruise."

At about the same time the Captain gives orders to cast off, Blake manages to unscramble the first footage of Hangar 3.

Two men check up on dropship 4, making sure the vessel is ready for operations. The sound is muted, largely dominated by a large generator they keep running to power up the Hippocampus.
Once they have gone through the outside check of the vessel, one of the men leaves the hangar while the other enters the vessel. They had been speaking, but without proper filters there is no way to discern what they said.

The other two pieces of footage are still being cleaned and rewritten.

So, can I do this with a bandpass filter? Blake's first attempt to filter out the background noise does not produce the desired result. Eventually, he creates a context sensitive filter which filters a different bandpass for each person speaking, and plays through the video manually, choosing which filters to include at each time.

voice 1: This one will do. She looks to be in okay shape.

voice 2: Its just one drop. She only has to land.

1: Still, dont want her burning up as we enter atmosphere, not with all the stuff we are loading.

2: She'll do fine.

1: What about the rest of them?

2: Not our concern, Amir has that covered. You start her up, I'll get her loaded up.

Securing his terminal, Blake asks Marco "Where is Lieutenant Maxwell at this time?"

Lt. Maxwell is currently in nher office Blake

Blake logs in to his terminal - the usual biometric/password combination - there's no point in being insecure.

Looking through the power usage logs, he tries to find any anomalies. In particular, output from the generators that is higher than the power usage but the power isn't being shorted away. Logs of how much power is being disposed off as unused. Logs for particular distribution node might provide a good way to check up on the system, but only if they go back far enough.

A node where power has not been routed to since near earth time might be ideal - the logs would probably still go back to the point he is looking for, and wouldn't have been overwritten since then. Or would it only require that the power distribution node has been given no new commands since then?

Blake does a bit of digging through technical logs, a tedious task he is glad the computers mostly do on their own. When the Polo left earth, with everyone in cryo, power usage was at 12%. When they reached Alpha Centauri, the moment the four men woke, power use jumped to 27% because the ship powered up the areas they used, with a spike at 34% the day before they left. When they abandoned ship, sending Marco forward again with everyone in cryo, power use dropped to 12% again.
Then at november 7, 2085, it jumped to 17% for two hours, to drop back to 12 again.

Blake forwards the information to Lt. Maxwell, hoping it will do some good.

He then checks into the system activation logs for the anomaly in 2085. System activation logs, that sort of thing. Is it consistent with trying to avoid the asteroid that hit the third engine?

According to the logs it was a spike in power because of damage control systems activating. Most likely because of the asteroid.

Blake checks further into the spike in 2048. Which systems did they use, and what caused the spike itself?

According to the power logs bridge, cryo, hangar three and one of the bridge deck cafeterias had been activated. The spike in use has been because one of the cargo bays, bay six, had been activated for ten hours. after they closed that, the power dropped significantly.
The bays themselves don't take up too much power, but it looks like they used the loading systems. Something was moved from bay six to hangar three using the automated systems.

Blake forwards the logs to Lt Maxwell, and then decides to look for any camera footage of the movements. Hopefully it will be network connected.

Finding the camera footage proves a lot more difficult, as most of it, if not all, has been deleted.
While digging through the logs he does however find several messages sent from the Marco Polo at the time they were near Alpha Centauri. The signature of the sender is different from the hacker'ss signature, indicating someone else sent them. There are three of them, and Blake's incription program quickly manages to decipher thyem. They were badly hidden.

From: AA
To: ACMC

Have arrived. Package secured.

A

Not much to go on for the first message, and the other two do not give much more away.

From: AA
To: ACMC

Awaiting go order.

Again, cryptic, and not telling much.

From: AA
To: ACMC

Disposed of liability. ETA 3 days.

Just then the computers pop up the results for his footage search. Only one camera has not been deleted, a simple door camera in the hallway between cargo bay and hangar. For a moment it shows a man rolling around a loading cart containing a single crate. Blake has seen the man before, on footage from the hangar. Its the one that left while the other prepared the dropship. More worrysome however is what he is carting around. The cvrate is clearly labeleed, and even with the raw footage Germaine can easily read the labels.

Warning, Fusion rods. Radioactive. Biohazard.

Blake forwards the information to my Maxwell.

"Optimal velocity reached sir!"

Captain Dorn couldn't help but smile. They were on their way, finally, destination unknown. Whatever awaited the CS-8 Marco Polo in the Keppler-Waldorf 118 system he had no idea, but he was confident his crew would be able to handle it all. They were the best, most of them handpicked by the Captain himself and Major Ascott. Now, with all the military crew awake, the ship should soon be running smoothly, and with any luck, in a couple of days they would be able to start waking up civilians.
"Excellent work ensign Smalls, keep an eye on those engines."

What a fine crew it was. They were young, most of them hardly in their twenties, but they had all been top of their class, and most of them knew the workings of the ship better than he did himself. It was a lot different from a submarine, and yet, it felt strangely the same. A confined metal tube, only this one was designed to not feel confined, and she was nearly 1.7 kilometers long. His old sub could easily fit in here ten times over.

He looked at the different stations again, making sure everyone was in place. Everyone that belonged on the bridge, and that man Germaine.
He was an excellent hacker and computer technician, no doubt, but he looked out of place. Lacked something, discipline maybe? Resolve perhaps? It was of little concern, the man did his job, and the fact that he took up a seat at weaponry was no problem. The two ensigns next to him could easily handle those tasks if needed. Blake Germaine had enough to work on as it was, or so it seemed. Maybe Dorn should just poke him up a little.

"Mr. Germaine, an update please on the status of our AI. Is he reliable yet? Any news?"

"Sorry Sir! I've been working on the investigation of the highjacking of the ship for Lietenant Maxwell. Shall I prioritize that higher?"

"No, no," Dorn shrugged. At the moment Marco seemed to do okay. "The investigation has priority. Carry on sergeant."

"Ensign Green, get sergeant Germaine a coffee please, instead of just standing behind him staring..."

The young woman behind Germaine looked up, a bit startled. Again she had been standing behind him staring at the screens, staring at how quickly, how easily Germaine worked the systems,  bending them to his will.

"Uh... yes sir, right away sir," she stammered before hurrying off.

Blake salutes. "Yes Sir!"

The young ensign quickly returns with a nice mug of steaming coffee. Hesitantly she offers it to Blake, keeping one eye on the myriad of texts and signs on his screen. The look in her eyes betrays her amazement.

Blake wonders if the fusion rod would be missing from manifest. It might be possible to look up their characteristics. On the other hand, he could check in with Lt Maxwell, and try to get a new angle on this.

Blake drinks some of the coffee. Hmm.

What would someone want with fusion rods?

No, it's definitely time to check in with Lt Maxwell.

Blake locks his screen, and heads for the turbolift.

From: Medical Facilities

Mike exits the elevator as it opens, stopping abruptly, his head turning back and forth in awe as he beheld the room. After standing there for a few moments in shock, he shakes his head and walks towards one of the crew nearby, smiling politely.
"Excuse me, do you know where I could find the Captain?"

The young ensign points to the overweight old man in the central command chair. Captain Blake Dorn seems to have dozed off a bit, his head resting on his left hand.

Mike thanks the ensign and heads towards the captain, stopping behind the chair for a moment in indecision as he decides on the best way to wake him, before finally clearing his throat loudly, speaking in a clear, calm voice.
"Ah, excuse me, Sir? I was told to report to you by Marco, after my post-Cryo examination."

"I'm not asleep!"

Blake Dorn, Captain, quickly sat up in his chair. Maybe nobody had notices. The crew all seemed very busy.
"Yes, Mike Schmidt. Come with me then. Let us go to my office, we can talk there."

-->> Dorn to captain's quarters

The only reaction Mike gives is to follow the captain to his quarters, silently memorizing the route the best he could.

--> Captain's Quarters
This message was last edited by the player at 22:14, Wed 28 June 2017.

Dorn stared intently at the live feeds transmitted by the trooper bodycams. They were now inside the freezer, looking for the rampaging corpse that had assaulted a medic and a few nurses before making a run for it. And now it seemed dead again.
He wasn't a scholar, he knew little of science besides what the military had taught him, but he knew he was in way over his head here. Walking corpses? Seriously?
It was a good thing he had capable staff at all departments. He was sure Lt. Maxwell could handle this situation, and if not, Ascott and his troops were at hand to obliterate the late Cpl. Patterson if needed.

Then why did he still feel so anxious?

Mariko was greeted at the double doors of the bridge by a marine in full combat gear, his SA-80X at ease over his left forearm. He checked her with a quick glance and an appreciative smile before raising her hand indicating her to wait.
Looking over his shoulder he noticed the captain was in his recliner at the centre of the bridge, and quickly he stepped inside to inform Dorn of Koizumi's arrival.

As the marine returned Captain Dorn got up from his chair and made way to his personal offices. The Marine then gestured for Mariko to follow him, and brought her to the office area too.

The Lt. follows the Marine to the Captain's office and nods as he leads her in. She stands at attention and salutes the Captain before removing her cover and tucking it under her arm.

"Lt. Mariko Koizumi, reporting as ordered, Sir!"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:39, Sun 08 Oct 2017.

Dorn heard the message clearly, but still doubted he did.
Vasco Da Gama. CS-3. Lost in 2034 en route to Alpha Centauri. Now here.
Things were getting stranger by the day. He nearly wished he was back on a submarine again.

"Helm, warn flight deck we will be moving. Set a direct intercept course to the remains of the Da Gama, slow cruise. Get us on her port side."

"Aye sir," the ensign replied.

"Weapons, ready boarding guns starboard side. Once we are alongside, tag her, lock her."

"Aye sir," the weapons officer spoke.

"Comms, get Major Ascott here on the double. And open a direct channel to Dragon Flight."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:41, Thu 26 Oct 2017.