Starshine: Shades of Grey

[Jishdefish]

Raf took a deep breath. This was it. The Experience. The life his whole life had been in preparation for. The colonization of the third planet of Gliese 581, Cleo. He stood before the virtual pool that represented the edge of the Program, and the beginning of human consciousness.

Numbers and estimates of his survival flashed through his mind. The past few week's free time, severely limited by prep programs for the upcoming integration with his body, was spent studying the experiments with the biostasis plants. According to the hypothetical models, 93% of all the crew would take, the other 7% would either be vegetated, or die as their brains fail to assume their previous roles in their vassals, considered inferior to a spoiled mind. Of course that wasn't the conservative estimate, which was much more bleak. Due to cellular deconstruction and unpredictable complications that could happen over the long years of stasis, even with the computer caretakers was dramatically reduced to a less than 33% survival rate.

Oh, screw it! He thought, using the old 21st century slang that he would have been scolded for by the computer, sometimes literally. He took the plunge...

The feeling was like the minuscule brushing of hundreds of pins along the surface of his skin. It was difficult to imagine that he'd truly felt nothing his entire life until this moment. It was painful at first, as if his whole body was an eardrum, screaming at an intense ringing sound coming from everywhere at once. But gradually the pain subsided, as his mind numbed it as a form of self-defense. As the pain ebbed, he tried to move, sending resounding shocks of feeling down his arm. It no longer hurt but was merely unsettling. It made him sick.

He opened his eyes and a swath of color overwhelmed him, but not as much as the feeling had, his brain was learning to compensate beforehand the rushes of his previously barred senses. He was in a room tinted red by an enveloping liquid. He tried to reach out with his right arm, but it felt like lead and would not rise. He tried his left, and like a machine badly adjusted and creaky with rust, it rose, before striking unexpectedly against the glass with real pain this time.

After clenching his teeth and uttering a few unspeakable curses, he remembered himself. Rafaelle reached up to his right, and after a few fumbling twinges of pain with his left hand managed to find the draining switch by touch. He twisted it, and accordingly the capsule drained, and the door unlatched itself. He pushed it open with his foot after pulling out the many plugs and needles nestled in his skin, surprised that in some cases, about two out of three, his skin had molded to it, making it a tedious process to remove them. Especially since his right hand seemed unresponsive to even the strongest of urges. If he hadn't been told to do so repeatedly in the Training program for waking, he would have forgotten to put on his clothes--warm, loose fitting cotton clothing in contrast to the cold, ridged, and synthetic interior of the ship--but he did so absent-mindedly, taking in his surroundings.

The console next to his chamber was blank, and a dark, black stain ran from it to the floor. He guessed it had broken in a sudden change of temperature or pressure, spilling the liquid crystal across the electronics. The console had been on his right side. Now in overwhelming privacy away from the computer he was a bit paranoid. He glanced over his shoulder before inspecting his limp hand. All feeling seemed to be muffled about halfway down his forearm and his entire hand would not move. It was mysterious, but the mystery had to wait, he had to make sure the captain, the one before him, had awakened properly. Unfortunately that was across the entire ship from him (to minimize the chances of the crew being without a leader), and he would have to walk the entire way. Sighing, he started his long walk...

OOC: Wow, that was long, even for a first post. I don't expect any of you to write that much, just so you know. Anyways, so each chamber is separate, at least for the officers and scientists, and have privacy until you enter the hallway. The computer was supposed to wake up everyone in a certain order, but failed for some reason and some of you can be already walking the hallways or, for those of you who haven't joined yet, can be inexplicably late. I can meet you all on the way on to the cap'n or later if you don't join by that time and walk in on what's happening. I'd better be quiet now, even my explanations are overbearing that's the last time I consume that much coffee in one sitting....

[Ersska]

Erin awoke. It was a painful experience for her. Sickening almost. In her glass 'coffin', her immediate reaction was to panic. Her training had been all 'outside', and now she was trapped, underwater in a little glass tube. Erin reached for the handle first and gave it a pull. Nothing happened. She pulled again; the handle broke, and the tube remained full. Fear gripped her. She let out a scream that was released as mere bubbles. Although her whole body ached, Erin began to beat the glass as hard as she could. She couldn't breathe, and the needles began to pull at her skin.
Help!, she screamed in her head. An icy chill rushed through her. She wasn't getting out! The glass wasn't giving way! She was going to drown! She was going to die!
Somebody help me! She pounded the glass hoping that someone, somewhere had already awaken and would save her/

[Corva]

Luna drifted in and out of dreaming. Was she in the stasis chamber? It was hard to be sure, she couldn't remember what it looked like.

Ah, yes, it was the stasis chamber. She snapped into full awareness. While others would probably find the claustrophobic surroundings frightning, Luna found them comforting.

She floated there for a while in the liquid surroundings, beforee opening here eyes. Ouch! Shouldn't have done that. She leant over and pulled the switch to drain the chamber. It felt odd ,moving her arm.

Luna released the capsule lid which rose off. She pulled all the connections off her body. Luckily they hadn't stuck too much.

Luna pulled on her clothes that had been left for her. The ship must have placed them there recently; there was no way they could have lasted the journy. She set off looking for everyone else.

[Jishdefish]

Raf walked in silence down the hallway, still slightly entranced by the architecture of the place. Every step he took down the hallway was sensed by the computer and a group of lights turned off behind him and a group turned on before him. It was almost transfixing to him. The Training module hadn't ever required light, it seemed to come from everything within the program, but this world was just the opposite, in the absence of the light there was nothing but dark. As if his surroundings had peered into his thoughts, suddenly the hallway lights ahead didn't light, and he quickly walked into a corridor of blackness. It wasn't too bad at first, and he kept his pace expecting, no, hoping the lights ahead weren't shorted like these were.

Strange sounds seemed to be coming from the walls. Bangs, hisses, and creaks, all sounds alien in the world that he had come from. Everything had been virtual there, nothing ever was damaged or in need of repair, except when the computer was teaching him to repair something that needed it. Gradually his fear grew in the seemingly endless dark until he couldn't stand it any longer. He entered a room to the side of the hallway by putting his hand to the pad. A fierce banging ensued from the stasis tank, and he realized that it had failed to open. Blinded by the lights in the chamber compared to the long dark outside he felt blindly for the manual failsafe. He found it and pulled. Liquid food and bio-safe bacterial concoction flooded the floor and the previous occupant of the tank fell out as well, gasping for air.

[Embermoon]

Ember cursed as she walked down the hall. The machinerey had seemed to all have malfunctioned. She started seeing people walking down the halls, some dazed, others in a slight panic, and yet others who had already started working. She went to find Raf, she needed to disscuss the damage and she could not seem to find the first in command.

[Corva]

OOC: Alert: Possible Fatal Computer Error 1647. To much anti aging in stasis chamber A56. Just saying that to alter the story a bit. Okay if a random non-player character is a baby? Just a twist on the computer errors messing up the biology.

Luna checked the other stasis chambers. The tech was somewhat similar to artificial wombs. Most of them were sleeping, a few were waking up. There didn't seem to be any problems with their chambers so she just passed over them.

One of the chambers cought her attention. The person inside had woken but didn't appear to even be trying to get out. She rushed over and pressed the ermergeny opening.

What she saw took her by suprise. The stasis chamber had worked to well. The person hadn't grown since birth. There was a baby in the chamber.

Luna pulled it out and disconnected the tubes. She wrapped it in the clothes that the dodgy computer had put at the foot of the chamber regardless of the age of the occupant.

This was not good. Now there was a baby to deal with as well. Out of interest she checked the other chambers, only to find an old corpse. Life support had failed completely on this one.

[Ersska]

Suddenly, Erin fell forward. Something had opeened the tank, and she sank to the floor as the liquid poured out. Sh escrambled on the floor, gasping for air. Her lungs burned, and every part of her body ached with the effort of getting up. Erin kept slidding in her attempts to push herself up.

[Jishdefish]

OOC: Eh, I didn't break the glass, the manual switch just bypasses the drainage systems and airlocks, popping the door open with magnetic couplings.

Raf turned to the victim of the computer malfunction, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. He kept on turning. His ears burned and he looked at the floor distractedly, his back now to the girl. "Eh, um, are you all right, uh... ?" He glanced to the pad next to her capsule. The screen hadn't blown like his had, but had some sort of other technical difficulty. Her name was burned into the screen. "Erin?"

[Embermoon]

Ember walked into where raf had woken and cursed. he sould have been in here! she thought. she stormed out of the room and went to go find raf.
OOC:Errr.....what exactly happened to the ship? need to know.....

[Corva]

OOC: I think the ships comoputer has experienced 'technical difficulties', a bit like HAL off Space Oddyssy.
And the total crew won't be that big. If someone was willing to construct such a mission they wouldn't be averse to adding in frozen human embryos to add genetic diversity.

IC: Luna checked more chambers. The computer must have gone crazy in this area. Well, I suppose that's what happens to a computer sytem over hundreds of years she thought. What idiot designed this ship anyway? What maniac designed the entire program? The people seemed to mainly range from 10 - 30, which wasn't so bad, but there was one person who'd really got it bad. Around 60 or 70, by the looks of it. The computers hadn't trained anyone in the basics of a stasis pod, so she was the best qualified to work out what went wrong.

OOC: Gliese 581c is a water world, but there may be some land at the poles. It's also tidally locked. I assume we will be landing at the poles?

[Ersska]

OOC: Whoops! Sorry, Jish. I fixed it.

Erin heard someone talking to her, but she could not see the person. It sounded like a guy. But everything was so bright, and she was still slipping on the floor. She finally manage to fix herself into a sitting position. The needles pulled at her skin adding to the pain she already felt. She began to pull at them. Her arms and legs felt heavy. Her eyes stung from sight, and her lungs burned with every breath.
"Who the hell would want to put anyone through this?" she gasped through gritted teeth. Erin slowly freed one arm from the needles and began working on the other.
"Who are you?" she asked the person. . .guy standing next to her. Being a botanist, her training hadn't included many other people besides her teacher. As far as she had been concerned, she was alone.

[Jishdefish]

"Rafaelle, pilot. I prefer Raf though..." He referred to the burnt out screen again. "So, Chief Botanist? Is that why you, well... Aren't you forgetting something?" His ears burned at having to point it out, and he was staring a hole in the ground.

[Ersska]

"Is that why I what?!" Erin removed the last of the needles and reached for the table in front of her. Her eyes still hurt, so she could barely see the table. She hadn't even bother to look up at Raf yet. Her hair had hidden her face from him so far. She used the table to pull herself up. She leaned on the table until her vision cleared. Suddenly, she noticed what was on the table in front of her. She looked at Raf and then down at herself. She screamed, tried to cover herself, and lost her balance again.
"Don't look at me!" she commanded Raf, even though he was already looking away. Erin pulled the clothes off the tables and quickly slipped into them. She stood up awkwardly once more.
"The pilot, huh? Raf, right? Are there others?" she said calmly like nothing had happened.

[Embermoon]

Ember walked back down the hall, looking in some of the rooms. Finally she found Raf in a room with another girl, who was looking slightly embaressed.
"There you are!" ember snapped, she was not in a good mood and even if she was, she would not have any people she trusted. "I've been looking for you! The first-in-command has dissapeared and the computer seems to have malfunctioned."

[Jishdefish]

"D-disappeared? What do you mean? No..." He suddenly remembered his busted screen, as if the pressure had dropped suddenly... He quickly went to a remote laptop hidden under the clothes table, all the rooms had one. He accessed the jettison logs and compared them with the awakening ones the times were off, and one was using some foreign time system with phases and cycles instead of hours and minutes, but he got a general idea. "The captain is dead. He woke up as his chamber was decompressed." He turned to them, his eyes almost glazed over. "I'm in charge." The words were hallow. He didn't feel like he was in charge. The ship was haywire, the captain was dead along with more than half of the crew. "We had better get to the bridge." He typed a few keystrokes on the computer and then looked back to them. "You tried to access the captain's chamber, yes?" He asked Ember.

[Embermoon]

Ember nodded.
"What are your orders?" she asked quietly. She was greiving on the inside, the captain was the only person who had understood her. She had no one to trust or be friendly with now. She tried not to cry, but a few tears had already escaped from her eyes. She quickly wiped them away, she had make them think she was tough, not a whimpering child.

[Jishdefish]

"Then the charts aren't wrong. We need to get to the bridge." He turned to the botanist. "The atrium can be accessed from there, and I'll need a report on our oxygen scrubbers. I need a mechanic as well to deal with the computer. We need to get this ship back on track before it breaks down completely and the quickest way to do that is to bypass the automatic control system directly." He started walking down the hallway, making plans in his head. He did his best to keep his right hand close to his side so it wouldn't wobble. No need for his new crew to see him weak.

[Ersska]

"Atrium? Scrubbers? Mechanic? Dude, I speak plant not tech!" Erin said as she followed the new captain from the chamber. Her legs were still wobbly, but she kept up fairly well.
"Where are we going? What's going on? Did we crash? Are we the only people?" she interrogated him as they wandered down the hall. She stumbled a few times, but always seemed to regain her balance before she fell.
Erin looked around while they walked, peeking into other rooms and reading panels. Suddenly, she passed a familiar place.
"My lab!" She tried to turn around quickly and once again, lost her balance. As she fell, she reached out for Raf. She caught hold of his right arm and pulled him down with her.

[Embermoon]

"I will take care of the computers!" Embermoon rasped as she wiped away the continuing tears.

[Corva]

Luna spotted three people. "Hey, you over there!" she yelled and ran up to them. "Where are the others? I've seen some people, the computer seems to have malfunctioned. They're all at differing ages." Their eyes were raised in question at the baby. She noticed. "Ah, yes, the baby. I told you the computetr has malfunctioned. Most of them are still alive though. What's been going on.
The boy spoke. "The ship's down. Most of the people are dead."
Suddenly Luna remembered who the corpse was. The doctor! "The doctors dead."

[Jishdefish]

OOC: Sorry for not posting sooner. Oh, and DragonRider, don't talk for other characters, it's not very sportsman like.

IC: Raf calmly stood back up and gave a hand--his left--to the botanist and he looked her in the eyes. "I'm sorry but you can't go to your lab right now. Look, I don't know the scientific name for them, but you know you have to check the plants with the specification to make the mass of oxygen we all need to breathe, okay? Those plants are in the atrium, the room with the large dome of glass next to the Bridge, that I also don't know the official name of." He should have studied those maps more carefully, but it wasn't his fault with the plants, it wasn't his area of expertise. He stepped back seeing she understood. Another girl appeared with a kid in her arms, and told him of the doctor's fate. "Well, I know the Adventurer grunt class has some skills in dressing wounds. We'll have to contact them by transmission. God knows where they are by now." Another box on the list of things to do; it was certainly growing.

The walk to the bridge wasn't long at all. With purpose, Raf strode in the door and immediately turned to his left and pressed his hand to the pad. A door out of the bridge opened and he nodded to Erin. "The atrium is through here." Turning to the control console at the head of the ship, immediately he sensed a problem. The controls were locked. The forward screens showed nothing but the black of space. "Argh problem after problem!"

[Ersska]

Erin thanked Raf as he helped her up. She listened to him explained what he was talking about.
"But. . .my lab. . .," she began to protest, but stopped herself. She followed him to the bridge. When he told her where the atrium was, she continued on to it. The door was closed. Erin pushed, it came open. She slipped into the atrium. She was home, back to the familiar, back to all she knew. Her plants were all here waiting on her. She smiled as she looked at the green foliage. But that smile soon faded as she noticed patches of brown scattered throughout the plants.
Oh, no! They're dying! Erin hurried over to check all the monitors. Some were working. Others were not. She would have to check some of the plants manually. The main monitor said that only 6% of the plants were damage. Looking around, Erin could tell otherwise. She tapped the controls, adjusting the settings of the room: temperature, lights, water, . . . Suddenly, there was a hiss and creak behind her. Erin spun around in time to see the door shut. She heard it click and knew that it was locked. She turned back to the controls. Had she done that? What had she pushed?

[Embermoon]

Ember saw the door close and lock Erin inside, and she walked over to the computer screen and opened up the computer and began to work.
"It looks somewhat like it has been falling apart for a while now," Ember explained, "It seems that it and the rest of the ship has been falling apart, but I will ned to look further to find the cause. In the meantime, I have fixed this computer to the best of my ability." She tried to stand up, but in the process of doing so, her face caught on a broken peice of metal which cut open her face. She shrieked in agony, the pain blinded her as she fell to the floor, unconsious.

[Jishdefish]

The first aid kit clattered to the floor as Raf accidentally dropped it. He slid it the rest of the way to Ember and quickly scanned through the bottles and creams. First he poured some hydrogen dioxide on the wound, then spread some liquiheal on top of that. It was a bandage cream laced with nanoids, not to heal the wound, but to prevent infection. It was meant as a defense from viruses and the like until they developed an immunity on the new world. They wouldn't always have nanoids to repair their skin so they weren't supplied with many advanced healing technologies once out of biochemical stasis.

He uttered a curse referring to excrements of the rear. "Those who weren't killed by the computer are going to be maimed by this junk!" He kicked the computer that had cut her. The monitor whirred to life, showing a screen with several icons. They included: Intraship Comm. Extraship Comm. Stasis, Manual Control, Navigation, and Systems Diagnostics. His training had told him to check their course and headings first, but that was obviously second on his mind now. First he had to find out what was wrong with the ship. His finger hovered over Diagnostics, but he knew that it probably dealt with computer code which he would be useless at. That would have to wait until Ember woke up. He clicked manual control. It asked him for a password which he entered as second in command.

A diagram of the ship popped up. He first clicked on the atrium door. It asked for a code to cancel atmosphere venting. Atmosphere venting! It was going to kill Erin! Not to mention the plants that they depended on for air! He quickly typed in the right code, but an error message popped up. It seemed to think that the room had excess pressure caused by a large gravitational pull. "What?" That doesn't make any sense! He tried the code again, with the same result. Then he checked the logs for when it was supposed to vent. 29 minutes.

Intraship Communications, Video/Audio, Botanist Division, Terrarium(Atrium). Erin wasn't on screen. He called out to her. "Hello? You there? Raf speaking."

[Corva]

Luna found a computer. The screen flashed up and she selected Stasis. "This is bad. No, extremaly bad. No, hyper bad." The screen told her which chambers had failed and which hadn't. Life support was on on half of them but the ages were all out. She gave the chambers a remote command to drain and open. Some refused to work. "Dammit" she said under her breath. "Open." The computer responded with Error: Network connection down. The only ones who could help those people were those just waking up.