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Daireem - Space
AuthorComment
Kapitein Piet
(Ethical) Space Pirate
1/27/2009 3:01:07 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

Kapitein finished donning his suit and turned it on.
A very old-school model, it provided more sturdiness than the flimsy modern suits, and plenty of mobility as long as the batteries lasted. It pressurized, lights came on, actuators powered up, and the radio popped to life.

"...to an airlock quick if there's anyone left to save on here, or do you have a pressurizable cargo bay?"

Hé?

It seemed she (whoever was transmitting) was talking about rescuing people from the Calamitous! Could he really be lucky enough to run into decent people after randomly plummeting through hyperspace to his doom? Impossibly good luck!

Remembering the ways karma has treated him in the past, he shuddered at what was in store, but praised the Void that he would not yet go gently into that good night, or need to rage against the dying of the light.

Unless, of course, they were bandits - and tricksy ones! Broadcasting a red herring on public channels while secretly carrying on encrypted communications - he'd seen it before.

While listening with half an ear at their conversation, he made a quick plan for a booby trap, and got to work, assuming he had at least two minutes until they found their way through the carnage to the cockpit in the stern. Kapitein was fairly confident the place wasn't going to explode anytime soon, so he could bide his time and play it safe. And if they turned out to be nice, after all, then they'd just have to wait.
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
1/27/2009 5:56:50 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.


While the Belladonna steamed toward the speeding wreckage that was the Calamitous, Freya fired carefully tuned blasts of electromagnetic radiation at the ship in an attempt to see inside.

The ever-useful Orion analysis package kept a running monologue: Adsorption frequencies consistent with high-stress DuraSteel construction with trace elements... performing discrete cosine transforms and filtering...

Freya was only a quarter turn into the three step maneuver that would align her with the Calamitous's direction of travel when Jara came on the radio. She answered, "My airlock is not nearly big enough, and I'm not nearly nimble enough. You're going to need to push it over to me, with the robots doing the holding. I'm sending telemetry to help you see through the debris."

In the meantime, the rapid prototyping facility started turning out a length of large, flexible hose that would hold pressure in space. This would ease docking immensely.

Differential interferometry complete. Life signs analysis initialized...

The analysis program checked for bodies of warm salty water.  Humans were right on the lower bound of the imaging resolution, but from experience Freya knew that it would pick up around 80% of them.

"Hold on, I'm checking for people on board..."

The only result was one possible reading at the bow of the ship. As humans rarely left each other all alone except when dead - especially in times of crisis - she considered discarding the datapoint and aborting the rescue. The risk of a catastrophic explosion threatening Jara and her robots was increasing every second.

"Jara, there is probably only one or zero person on the ship, on the bow. It is too dangerous for you. I advise you come back.  I will be able to rendezvous with the wreck within thirty minutes regardless."

Left unsaid was the fact that Freya knew that the air in the bridge would be gone in just five minutes. The odds that a person was even alive on there were low, and allowing them to slip toward zero was clearly the optimal solution.
Jara Green
freelance fighter pilot
1/27/2009 6:34:23 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

One or zero... Dang. That was bad, the ship was meant to house a fair sized crew. Those were some bad leaks, it was a big ship but the life support...

"Freya, I don't think the one inside could last thirty minutes with the way that thing's venting air. I'll bring it to you, but I think that may take too long. Can you see a way in? I can get in there with some air."

Another thought came to her then. "Freya are you capable of hacking into the computer to shut some down systems so it doesn't blow and reduce the venting? Let me know when the bots have a grip. One human is worth a risk. I wouldn't want to die of suffocation in a smoldering wreck, even if it was my Belladonna."
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
1/28/2009 4:20:37 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

(Aaghh, the ship has been upgraded to a small carrier! I am so glad it is pretty much destroyed. Anyway, I'm glad we're on the same page again.)

Humans were never very good at following sound advice.  Freya used to believe that they knew what they were doing when they went against obvious common sense.  Eventually, she figured out that people actually act irrationally on a regular basis and nobody considered it a problem.  This appeared to be one of those times.

Hacking the ship was a creative idea but failed at the word go because there was no way to even establish a connection with the ship's systems, let alone cold hack it in mere moments. Unless Jara had some trick up her sleeve, the idea didn't even warrant further mention.

She said in her robotic, monotonous voice, "I'm not even sure there is anyone on board! If you continue, there is a high chance that you will perish but only a low chance of finding and saving another person. I insist you keep your distance and let my robots do the finding."

When she said that, the twin robots jumped from the Belladonna's wings and jetted toward an airlock near the front of the ship.  
Kapitein Piet
(Ethical) Space Pirate
1/28/2009 4:09:00 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

(Yes, it's now a carrier! Well... now *was* a carrier...)

This conversation on the public channels went beyond anything Kapitein considered bandit scum capable of. If it was a trick, well, then they deserved a catch.

He considered the odds that it was "decent folk" quite a bit higher, though.

Kapitein activated the transmission unit on his suit, "Hang on there, fellas. Don't take risks on my part, ye fools! I'm coming out, all peaceful and well-intentioned so put away yer hardware if ye'r packin'. Kapitein Piet - at yer service."

(It's possible (perhaps likely) that either Freya with her huge data banks, or Jara from her contacts with her community, had heard of "Donderop" Piet before.)

With that, he holstered his pistol and started making his way through the wreckage to the outside.
Jara Green
freelance fighter pilot
1/28/2009 5:43:17 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

Jara, being in the anti pirate business mostly, remembered something about a Piet, but she couldn't remember if it was good or ill.

Relief flooded her voice as she heard him on the radio. "I'm glad, Mr. Piet, you sound like you have oxygen and a suit. Freya's bots will bring you to my fighter and we can bring you in. Freya, I assume you can handle salvage on your own? Oh, Mr. Piet, do you think they'll follow you here?"

She steered Belladonna out of the debris, and waited for a sign from Freya's bots as to his location, but she didn't want to power down her weapons yet. She took this time to get a better look at the wreckage and at Freya herself, the strange, but elegant utilitarian design of her hull.
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
2/1/2009 6:13:17 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

The thick accent of the old captain was difficult for Freya to understand with her language processing shrunk to its minimum. After three extra passes, the sounds parsed into sensible symbols. Realizing the threat was over, Freya started loading her improved natural language package into memory and set a training process to improve her skills in Pietese.

In a slightly more human cadence and tone, she said, "Nice to hear from you, Kapitein Piet. I am the space station FREYA, and the other voice on the air is that of Ms. Green.  According to my measurements, your ship has a 5% chance of spontaneously exploding each minute, so I suggest you hurry out."

The pair of many-armed robots made it to the ship and clamped on with claw and magnet. The first, RD-1, clambered over to an airlock while the second, RD-2, moved aft to a fracture in the hull and started to tear it open. Salvage would be much easier if Freya could get inside and keep the ammo and powerplant from blowing up.  All that was needed was the turning off of the main power, and the ship would become totally inert.

The station wasn't halfway through its maneuver yet when the wreckage shot past it.  It would take a while to catch up, but at least they had avoided a calamitous collision.
Kapitein Piet
(Ethical) Space Pirate
2/3/2009 4:58:32 PM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

"5% a minute? That gives me..." Kapitein did some quick calculations, "...just short of a quarter hour until I'm half-dead."
He reached a wide breach in the hull just in time to watch the space station whiz by - a dark shape momentarily occluding the faint glow of the galaxy, the pinpoints of nearby stars and distant galaxies blinking out and back in tandem.

"Given I'm probably supposed to be completely-dead already, and worse, I'll take a a quick look-see and find out if I can shut this baby down. I'm not going to let a little set-back like this blow up my Calamitous! See you in 10!"

(har har - calamitous collision? I see what you did there...)

Kapitein Piet pushed away from the ruptured hull and ventured back into the twisted mass of his ship, towards the power plant.

"Thanks for the info, stranger, keep me posted! Oh yea - about people following me here? My hyperspace cores were way undercharged when I jumped, so I'm bound to have left one heck of a polarized entropy trail - that'll take eons to clear out. Question is, would they happily assume the ship broke up at the hyperspace transitions, or would they decide to follow to make sure? I'd say the chances of that are about the same as the Calamitous exploding in 15 minutes. Fifty-fifty."
Jara Green
freelance fighter pilot
2/4/2009 5:53:24 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 60
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

Jara clicked her tongue and moved away from the wreckage to let her radar get a better sweep. If someone was coming after Piet she wanted to see them before they saw her. Anything that could tear up a Nexus likely won't be intimidated by a Thoron, but it's nice to actually see them coming.

"Thanks for the heads up Mr. Piet, we'll keep an eye out. When you're ready I'll give you a ride to the station."

A 5% chance every minute... That made for a small chance each minute... But the likelihood compounds fast. She pulled a little further away from the dangerous debris mess than was truly necessary to give her senor array a good view.
QuantumTroll
Street Fighter/Space Station
2/4/2009 11:01:19 AM

Level: 1
Experience: 0

Total Posts: 181
RE: Space Station F.R.E.Y.A.

The human in the wreckage was definitely off his rocker. What sort of madman would accept a significant chance of imminent death because he had just survived serious danger?  Freya judged that it wouldn't do to argue and the best course of action would be to render the ship safe as quickly as possible.

Still, Freya couldn't help defending her right to the salvage. The ship was a complete wreck, and there was no way she would let the human who wrecked it have the rights to its scrap value. "Your Calamitous? That ship is beyond repair. Whatever its name was when you owned it, I now claim full salvage rights.  If you want to help me stop my wreck from detonating, I'll waive the entire cost of your rescue, how's that?"

Sometimes, human sentimentality could lead to higher expected returns. Freya hoped that sentimentality and a cash incentive would be too hard to pass up, but she had no idea how proud the old captain was. He could just decide to leave on the principle of not letting himself be manipulated.  

RD-1 managed to squeeze itself through the thick outer hull of the ship and found itself in a maintenance tunnel. A thin mist of lubricant was suspended in the rarefied atmosphere of the duct and coated the spindly metal arms of the machine.  Guided by Freya's powerful scanner, it started making its way toward the powerplant of the ship.  

RD-2 clambered along the outside of the ship, easily keeping up with Kapitein Piet's movements with its thrusters and claws. It followed him to facilitate a quick exit if necessary. With every microsecond tick of its internal clock, the odds against Kapitein Piet and its robot brother mounted.



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