Ep1 Act3: The Golden Hind

[Sjet]

The first thing that struck the crew of the Tim Allen as they materialised within the darkness was the extreme cold. The air had a almost painful quality to it, speaking less of its icy nature and more of its preservation across the countless centuries. There were hisses of pain as people staggered, bumping into ice rimed walls and the frigid floor beneath their feet.

An industrious Ensign in engineering gold snapped a handful of chemical lights in half, tossing them to his feet in a scattered puddle of brightening arctic light. It shone out of their huddled group in brilliant shafts of light and dark, the shadows created by it far to envious of their domain to flee entirely. Those shadows remained in the corners and along the edges of the room, and as the chemical glow sticks grew in intensity those shadows fled to the walls.

The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in a byzantine squeeze of lines and symbols. The tangle of them so tight in places they took on the form of eye watering optical illusions that demand the attention of the unwary. In fact if you looked closely you’d notice new symbols were appearing in the golden material of the wall, with old ones fill back in to form a seamless reflective surface.

They were all collected in a single room, a large space not unlike a conference or briefing room on a Federation starship: except there weren’t any chairs to sit on, and the table provided looked more like a golden sculpture of a flat topped tree. It was just a space, a rectangular void with a entrance at either end. Both entrances were sealed off by what looked like a flimsy golden mesh weave, a mesh that suddenly rose in potential energy as hands and tri-corders approached it: look but don’t touch.

Captain Sjet caught P’Trell as she began her near boneless fall to the floor: the toll of being blasted, singed, and slightly melted finally being paid for in full. But at least it was freezing cold on the floor. He quickly turned his head about, doing a quick mental head count of people assembled in the conference room.

They were short by half.

The bridge crew were all present, as well as the Starbase personnel: two Andorrans, one Vulcan, a crotchety Bajoran and a Martian with hair that made it look like she was Jack Frost. There was also a handful of Tim Allen crew members there as well, like the Engineering ensign with the glow sticks and a orderly from sickbay. But Helmsman Gary, the engineering crew and the other medical crewmen were unaccounted for. Sjet reached up,patted his com badge and tried to sound as calm as could be.

“Captain Sjet to any survivors of the USS Tim Allen, respond.” he said, turning back to look at P’Trell. He lifted her up and paced her onto the table beside Santra, who just so happened to begin to awaken from the concussive blow to his head with the sort of calm detachment and reasoned thought process Sjet had come to expect from the doctor.

“Who did this to me…” Santra growled groggily, as Sjet’s plea for his crew to announce themselves was answered with garbled static from the triangular communication device.

“Forces of nature beyond the ken of mortal control.” Sjet said, taking one of the purloined med kits and using its child/ensign friendly instructions to begin work on sealing up and mending the wound on P’trell foot.

“I’d hardly call your startling incompetence a force of nature.” Santra said, before levering a elbow under himself to begin sitting up right “Someone had better give me an explanation that makes sense or so help me I’ll…I’ll…”

Judging by the paleness of his skin the old man might have been about to literal vent his spleen.

TAG-All, explore your surroundings. The doors will remained sealed for a moment, but not for to long. Just enough for us all to get onto a even keel.

Points to note:

1-USS Tim Allen is gone, what power is left there is set up to keep the engines from blowing up and that won’t last for more than a few hours given all the damage.
2-It is cold, cold enough that your characters should worry about hypothermia.
3-Those gold mesh doors will give you a nasty shock. How nasty a shock will be determined on my aching back: if its a bad day prepare to loose fingers, but I’m sure Sai’tan and Jones can come up with some steam powered replacement ones.
4-More to come soon…

[Ciara Mei]

It didn’t matter, it seemed, what medication Zuub gave to her. Because the moment Ryler stood up, beyond knowing not to move to quickly, she also knew that she was cold, extremely cold. The transporter had taken hold and where they’d been beamed to was freezing cold to say the least.

She was standing now, with little pain, which was good. Zayna looked around the room at the others, all of which were in the same situation, at least the cold part. Zuub seemed to be making her way around the injured, which was fine by her. She was moving herself slowly around, wishing she had something to wrap up in.

Thoughts filled her head as she did so, taking in the surroundings.

Where in the hell are we? What is this place? Why is it so bloody cold?! How are we going to get out of here?

Those thoughts and many more rattled through her brain as she did her best to keep moving and keep as warm as she could. But again, she felt useless. What was she going to do in this place, wherever it was. She wished she was somewhere that at least had heating, and a decent sickbay. The pain medication was only going to last so long, and Zayna knew that the more she did more around, the more likely it was that she was going to injure her back more.

It didn’t take long for her to hear Santra complaining on the table. Ryler made her way over to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

“Not worth getting up. As for who did it to you, besides what Sjet said, it was a console. Got you in the head, me in the back. I can barely move, and only reason I can is because of pain medication from Zuub. Back still hurt, bad.”

Her eyes looked around again as she shivered.

Tag: Santra, Any and all

[Nevian]

[SabrinaPandora]

It was cold, blessedly so. And that much was right with her world.

Lieutenant Talla P'Trell had survived the arc of electricity that had destroyed the Tim Allen's shields, and forced herself to keep moving. because there was danger. There were people in need. Because she had a duty to fulfill, the sole purpose that had kept her going all these years- to protect and serve. So she had pressed on and forced herself to keep moving, to stay awake, to keep working, to follow orders.

There was pain. Rather an overabundance of it, really. Much of her left hand was actually cooked inside the melted plastic of the tactical console which was still attached to it. Removing it would take a number of layers of her blue skin with it, and even now with it all somewhat attached it was markedly painful. Her joints all ached, every muscle she had was sore as if she had overexerted herself, and the gaping exit wound in her foot had made walking difficult at best. The parts of her coldsuit that were melted to her flesh were also very painful, though at least for now the brutal 22 degree heat was no longer an issue. The cold on her back felt soothing and calming to her- or at least it would were she awake to appreciate it.

Of course the surge had stopped her heart. Fortunately the artificial heart Starfleet had installed a few years ago had been programmed to reboot, so it had served its purpose and kept her alive as it was designed.

Ever the soldier, Talla had been determined to press on, and she had braced for the transport. But the rearrangement of her atoms into energy and back again had finally been the one trauma too many in a crisis that had gifted them to her in abundance, and her scrambled brain could not maintain the dim guttering flame of her awareness. Part of her still struggled to reach consciousness, to get up, to move, to do her duty. But while the spirit was willing, the flesh was badly damaged, and unwilling to allow her to ignore her injuries and press on. The pain was simply too much for her to deal with right now.

Aside from the spasms and muscular contractions that were still occurring even as she lay on the table where she had been gently placed by Captain S'jet, behind those azure eyelids the polar blue eyes flickered back and forth. Because despite all sense and logic, the dogged little security chief was still determined to fight her way back to consciousness. Mortally injured or not, she still had a job to do.

It just wasn't going to be getting done anytime soon.

[Amanda Rose]

[Sjet]

[Aoife]

"No.. no.. NO!" Jones snarled as she looked around and realized that not everyone had made it across. Or into the right room, which was also possible given the speed things had changed. She ignored everyone around her for a long moment.

Finally, she decided that she had to let it go. At least for the time being. At roughly the same moment that she straightened up and took a deep breath, Santra stumbled against the wall. Emerald frowned as she watched the wall change. "What?" She murmured, stepping forward. "What?" Her face creased into a puzzled deeper frown, and she walked up to the wall. Mere inches away, she stared at the glyphs, tracing them with a finger that came oh so close, but never touching. "What are you...."

She felt along her waistband, hoping that she had a tricorder or something useful with her still. With a sense of relief, her fingers traced the hard rectangle of the scanning instrument. She flipped it open and began to take as detailed scans as possible with it.

"Could we be dealing with a ship running on automatic?" Santra asked. She looked over at him and saw that he was still holding his hand as if it was hurt.

"Possible," she said walking forward. "Entirely possible. I'm scanning for life signs."

[Nevian]

[Ciara Mei]

Ryler glared at Santra as he emphasized her rank. It wasn’t as if she needed reminding of it every time they spoke. He knew as well as anyone else what she’d been through, but still didn’t seem to care.

Once he’d pulled himself off the table, she wasn’t fast enough to catch him, but Sjet was. But what had happened to the wall he touched caught her attention more. She simply stared at it, half listening to what the others were saying about it.

Without looking over at him, she spoke to Santra, “hand doing okay?” That was all she asked as she looked over the glyphs, trying to sort out their meaning. She wanted to run her finger along them, see if anything actually changed. But, she couldn’t do that, not with what happened to Santra a moment ago.

Instead, Zayna walked along the wall until she found one that she wanted to attempt decipher. She did have a bit of a thing for languages that she kept hidden.

[Amanda Rose]