Gareth relates what has just happened.

"It seems that we are clear. This ship may have automated systems in place to protect itself. There are some other readings I can't make snese of yet.

The ship rolls to place it's roof toward the gas giant they are orbiting, and adjusts it's attitude to point pro-grade in the orbit. The Daiidkhun continues to accelerate away, taking it further off course from its destination.

Back in the crew area, the inner airlock door won't respond to anyone's handprint.

Brent shakes his head.  "Give it up Malcom.  There is no need to go EVA."  He glances as his watch to see how soon the cryo tube would open up.  "Victoria, are you ok?  How is the cryo tube behaving."  He headed up to the bridge to look for himself at the situation.

"So where is the Daiidkhun?" he asks Gareth as Brent tries to make sense of the displays.

Veronica sounds hoarse as she comes up on the comm circuit. "I've been better, Sir, but I'm on my feet. The air is perfectly fine in here, fresh even. Our friend back here will be out in about twelve minutes. If you can find her some clothes, she would probably appreciate it, instead of having to parade around naked. I could use some help when she comes around, too."

All three bridge stations are alive now, with artfully arranged holographic controls the like of which Brent has never seen in full operation.

Gareth discovers that, if he touches an object in the display, information about it pops up on the screen next to it. Unfortunately, he can't read the language, but he has an increasing mental itch that he's seen it before... somewhere.

"Roger that Victoria, I'll be down in time to help her decant.  She should have a stateroom aboard with clothes I would assume."  He pulls off his helmet and takes a deep breath of the ship's air.  Stepping forward he examines the looks at the controls. "This is way more sophisticated than anything we've ever managed.  It must be a relic from before the wars shut things down from the outside.  Can you get access to any of the controls Gareth?"

The script looks somehow familiar to Brent..

Brent curses.    "That script is almost familiar.  Can you make it out Gareth?"

Gareth touches the Daiidkhun and relays whatever information he is able to pick out from the display and the foreign language.

23:50, Today: Hoot rolled 7 using 3d6 ((1,3,3)).

"This is vaguely familiar to me somehow. Perhaps it is imperial? I won't be able to do too much with the controls until I master some of this language whatever it is. If you find any kinds of books bring them to me here. Maybe I can work from there to decode it."

Touching the ship seems to trigger something in Gareth's memory. The language is Vilani - it had been in fairly wide use in the older parts of the Imperium, but it was far less common in the border areas than Galanglic.

The display changes, zooming in on the fleeing freighter, and adding a video image from the external cameras to the generated image. The ship has stopped firing its engines, and is rolling on its thrusters again.

Their ship is still pulling steadily away, even though they have stopped accelerating.

Brent shook his head; "Imperial?  No, it doesn't quite seem like it but something from the same period.  Certainly this ship is old enough to be a true relic."  He looked excited.  "If this is a relic imagine the value and the importance of the technology.  This is truly more advanced than what we have and may even have clues to the making of Jump drives or even contain a working unit."

He leaned forward.  "They're not boosting anymore and certainly not on course after that burn.  They must be adjusting their facing with the thrusters to come back on course."

What do we so now sir?

OOG: I think we're waiting for Hoot's comments.

"The Daiidkhun appears to be leaving. I suggest we with locate escape pods or find a way to learn the controls. We have been abandoned. Perhaps we should regroup. Thoughts?"

Gareth relates the name of the language and everything he sees on the display.


While Gareth is pleased to be rid of the Daiidkhun's captain he had hoped to have a few more crewmen about his new ship. This new situation was not with out opportunity though.

Brent glances at his watch.  "The controls seem to be out of our reach at the moment.  We do have an option though.  The woman in the cryo tube is probably crew and can help us out of this situation.  She'll be decanting in a handful of minutes."  He glanced again at his watch.  "Let's search the place more thoroughly though but stay in pairs.  Gareth, Malcom can you continue the search.  I'm going to go down with Victoria to see just who we've awoken."

OOG: Malcolm and Gareth can catch us up with their activities as we go along here...

IG: Brent arrives at the cycling low berth to find Victoria frowning at the control panel. "Oh, hello, Sir. I'd be doing nicely if I could read this thing, but it seems the process is nearly complete."

As Brent watches, the timer reaches zero, and the device's lid lifts upward and back toward the occupant's feet. After a moment, she coughs and tries to roll onto her side. Her body is soaking wet, and Brent can see goosebumps forming on her dark skin.

"If you have a weapon keep it handy. You may need to put her down if shes infected. I'd keep your suit on as well."

With Malcolm in tow Gareth will start looking for crew quarters that could contain books, or corpses that might shed some light on the crew's fate.

Gareth and Malcolm quickly locate the crew quarters behind the two doors in the common area. There are two single occupancy bunks in each stateroom. There are three sets of personal items - hand computers of some type, toiletries, and clothing, one for a man and two for women.

Malcolm proceeds to go through the crew quarters looking for pictures, journals, logs, anything that resembles religious, personal, etc.

"Sir, would you like to see if those hand held computers is working? It's. Long shot but we might get lucky."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:22, Fri 01 July 2016.

Malcolm finds a picture that could be the two people in the crew area, showing them with another couple about their age, along with three small children. The plaspaper is in good condition, although it is brittle with age.

He also finds handwritten letters, apparently from all three crew members. The paper is heavy, and made with a definite grain, instead of the plaspaper Malcolm has seen. It is also brittle, but it has aged much better than the picture. And - Malcolm can read them, since they are in Galanglic and not Vilani. The couple's names, and they are married from the content of their letters, are Siar and Piiam, with no surnames mentioned.

The third person is Joxe Laiam. There are no pictures of her, though.

Brent considers removing his suit and pauses for a moment.  Then he changes his mind and removes the helmet.  "If she's infected we're probably doomed anyway.  We need help getting the ship active and if she dies we'll be stranded here and stuck in our suits.  Unless we can find a way to recharge the air in the tanks we'll die as well.  Everyone else keep your suits on though.  I'm going to remove my helmet as a sign of friendship with whoever is coming out of the cryo tube."

He considers the other requests.  "Do you have any names or other evidence from the staterooms?  Keep the hand computers as we might be able to hack into them.  Also, bring some woman's clothing for our sleeper."

With that he turns back to the cryo tube.  He nods to Victoria in agreement and then steps forward.  Turning on the exterior speaker he attempts to help her sit up.  "Hello, I'm Brent," he speaks in slow Galangic.

The woman coughs twice, bringing up a small amount of a bluish liquid. She looks up at Bernt as she rises onto her knees inside the tub-like structure. Her skin is slippery from the liquid inside the tube, and she is well-muscled and toned, even after the time spent in stasis.

"I..." she starts to speak, and then leans forward to either cough or vomit out more of the blue liquid, Brent can't tell which. "Oh, that sucks," she mutters. "Are you..." she takes a breath, "going to answer my obvious questions," another breath, "for me, Brent whoever-in-Inferno you are?" She makes no attempt to cover herself as she swivels her body to half-face him, still kneeling inside the berth.

Brent steps back a bit as the woman seems to stabilize.  "You've been in cold sleep for a long, long time.  I'd say a century at least.  We stumbled across the ship and found a man and woman dead in the lounge area.  What happened here?"

"What!?" She looks at him with wide eyes? "Dead?" She swivels to look at the other low berths in the bay, and then the rounds on Brent. "What did you people DO to them?!" Her muscles bulge as she grips the edge of the berth, and her eyes are fiery.

Brent stepped back a bit.  "We didn't do anything to them.  When we boarded the ship all the systems were powered down and the man and woman were dead a long time."

"Oh...my..." She sits back on her haunches. Tears start rolling down her face. "They told... me that they... were going to go in their berths." She covers her face with her hands and starts to cry in wracking sobs.