Prologue: Inauspicious Beginning to a Starfleet Career

[Shurijo]

After leaving the room and on their way back to their stations, Cadet Shur Ijocada turns to Cadet Serao and says "Can you make the announcement? I'm going back to my screen to make sure the ships get clear and any assistance they need. I'll request a status update from any damaged ships to see if additional damage control crew or tugs are needed to be dispatched."

[Bohemond]

A couple uncomfortable moments pass as DeVries has the great fortune of arriving just in time for everything to start exploding. Once there is some relative calm, the science officer steps forward to speak with Shur. "Busy morning, I take it?" Jacob says. "Anything I can do to help? I'm no helmsman, but I can stand in front of a console and look competent."

[ManWithDoor]

Alik tries to keep his concerns to the back of his mind, there being little he can do while on a space walk, calibrating equipment. Statistically the chance something happened to family or close friends is vanishingly remote. The United Federation of Planets has billions upon billions of citizens from many worlds, with countless ships traveling the stars at any given time. But statistics mean nothing to those that lose loved ones to the unforgiving hunger of the vacuum of space. Tragedy hits anyone, regardless of the remoteness of the probability.

He tries to stay on task, powerless to do anything else about the issue at this time anyways.

[Shurijo]

Shur hears DeVries question, but he's a bit distracted. After a moment, he responds, "Huh? Oh, make sure any ship with their emergency status activated has priority for docking. Any ship that was scheduled to depart today and can depart, we need them to undock to free up space for the damaged ships. Keep a eye on the tugs to make sure they have a clear path for hauling in the damaged ships."

[Bohemond]

DeVries takes a seat at the console. While not strictly speaking a starship sensor panel, the newly minted science officer did know his way around the console. His first action is to bring up a display of the area around the crash site, with sensors specifically looking for anything that could escape visual notice but still pose a hazard to ship moving near the affected zone.

"Ijocada, any idea what caused this?" Jacob says, figuring the man is distracted and probably will take a while to respond. He immediately organizes the task before him into compartments, first mentally dividing the landing docks into sectors based on proximity to the explosion. He then calls up a list of any ships registering emergency status, preparing to assign to the openings farthest from the site. Next, he scans the status report on docked ships to see which ones are ready to depart as well as any that are scheduled to have any upgrades/repairs/resupplies completed within the next 24 hours. While he presumes there is already a squeeze to get these vessels on their way, DeVries looks for any delay he can excise. If a ship has been given the all clear, all crew is alerted to be onboard ready for departure immediately. If a vessel is estimated to be ready to go by 2200 hours, the crew is to be ready to depart. That done, Jacob will begin giving ships that are ready clearance to depart, taking into account distance from the blast and avail of lanes of egress from the station.

Having handled those two tasks, DeVries keeps his eyes on the tugs, making sure they're able to function without interference.

[Orvost]

Alik
A man making a spacewalk is alone in his thoughts. His entire existence is limited to the form-fitting confines of his environmental suit while the vastness of the universe is laid out before him. For Alik, his only connection to other intelligent life is the disembodied voice of Poljos guiding him through the task in front of him.

The news of a lost spacer vessel claws at the corners of Alik's concentration. The report Poljos gave of the incident dripped with the common prejudices others have toward the spacer community. The situation doesn't sit well with Alik but, in retrospect, it was hard to tell if the tone of the news was from the report Poljos read, Poljos himself, or Alik's own sensitivity toward the issue. Nevertheless, Alik tries to put the news out of his mind as he prioritizes his conscious thought with the task at hand.

Eight hours after leaving the airlock, Alik repressurizes in a cargo bay of the Maraxle to meet up with Poljos. While the deflector dish calibrations may not be his best results, Alik avoided any major mistakes and the Tellarite crew wasn't going to get anything better out of him. When he takes his helmet off, Alik notices his head is dripping with sweat and he is surprised by how physically demanding it was for him to operate in a zero-G environment.

As sweaty and fatigued as Alik feels, Poljos doesn't look any better when the two meet up and make their way off the ship. They've both been awake for over thirty hours and have less than two hours before they have to report to work again for what promises to be another eighteen hour shift. Alik also finds out that the explosion in orbit diverted two technician work crews to clean-up, repair, and towing duties and that the ten-hour down time vacation Alik and Poljos's crew were enjoying was interrupted after four hours when they were recalled to temporary duty to make up the slack. When everyone reports for duty in two hours, the rest of the crew will be coming off a six hour temp-shift, a ruined vacation, and only four hours of sleep.

Whenever Alik finally makes it back to his living quarters, he sees a light blinking on his wall comm system indicating a message. It's Cadet Campeador: “Alik, please let your science officer friend know I found something important I can probably share with him about his missing ship. It is something he should probably read for himself in the computer lab. I'll have to meet him there to share it.”

Display

Alik's impressive endurance will help him function better than most with sleep deprivation and body fatigue, but it will still affect his performance.

Jacob and Shur
The small, windowless office space Shur and Cadet Serao share was cozy when it was just the two of them. With the addition of Jacob, the room is crowded and claustrophobic. Jacob brings with him the dusty, earthy smell of someone coming from a natural outside environment. The contrast is noticeable in the sterile, artificial corridors of a space vessel. Jacob takes position in front of the sensor display, controls that he is most skilled and comfortable with as a science officer.

Aside from the lost ship, eight ships in total received proximity warnings. Three of those ships escaped harm with slight course shifting evasions within set orbital parameters or with their standard navigational shields. Four ships suffered superficial damage but all of them use it as an excuse to receive priority docking. Only one ship received enough damage to warrant assistance. Two engineer work crews are diverted to handle cleanup and towing. Most of the debris from the Kingfisher burned through the atmosphere and fell on the uninhabited side of the planet. Communications officer Serao gives a short base-wide report of the situation. With adjustments and mitigation suggested or implemented by the three man team of Shur, Jacob, and Serao, things are running as before in less than an hour.

Display

Even though there are still a few loose ends on the day, I'd like to cover most of what happens over the next two weeks in a few posts, if that is alright with the rest of you. Each of you has some decisions to make:

Alik
Will you try to get 90 minutes of sleep before returning to work or will you do something else? Do you plan on looking into the identity of the lost spacer ship? If so, do you check with your friends or look it up yourself? Do you pass Campeador's message on to Jacob? Your down time between work shifts is short and precious and any diversion you decide to make may affect your work performance.

Also, a few days later, Cadet Weathers corners you. She quit her job at the officer's club and wants you to let her join your work crew.

Jacob
Do you eventually get around to asking Shur if he knows anything about, or is willing to take a look at, your team's vehicle? You still have to report back at the work site cave in a few hours for guard duty. Either soon from Alik, or much later from Campeador, you are told that there is some information about your ship that Campeador can show you in the computer lab. You will have to contact him and make an appointment.

Shur
Most of your decisions are based on whether the other pcs come to you for help or information.

[ManWithDoor]

Alik lays his head against his desk and moans in exhaustion and frustration, then forces himself to stand back up before he passes out. He forces himself to strip out of his sweat-soaked clothes and clean up, and feels refreshed from the experience. It isn't a substitute for sleep, but it does make him feel more like a human being rather than a damp blob.

He trudges to the common room of their lodgings and seeks out Jacob to pass along the message from Cadet Campeador about findings 'something important' to share with him in the computer lab. Cryptic, and indirectly communicated instead of a direct message, so shenanigans are likely involved. While he's awake anyways he checks in with Shur to see if he knows more about the drama in orbit, mainly the name and crew manifest of the destroyed ship.

OOC

Inclined to take on Weathers since basically being a waitress in the officer's club is just plain demeaning. The problem is, what are her engineering skills? She's trained for the Helm, correct? If she's got engineering skills, just ones focused more towards thrust and warp operations, that could still be useful enough to justify the transfer.

[Orvost]

GM Note: When Alik places his call to Shur, it is a day later, almost halfway through Shur's next shift and Jacob isn't there.

Display

Alik
When pressed about her engineering credentials, Weather's offers a shrug and a sheepish smile and says she took some elective courses at the Academy and that she's a "quick study".

[Shurijo]

Cadet Shur informs Alik with as much as he has been told about yesterday's incident. As a cadet, he doesn't have the clearance for details and only knows what he's seen and been told. He goes over the details of the damaged ships and priority assignments for repairs. The last few days has been organized chaos in his department with attempting to get all of the damaged ships repaired and priority birthing, but also maintain the other ship's schedules and priorities that were delayed or offset by the damaged ships being given priority status.

[Bohemond]

Jacob, after spending about two hours helping the other cadets, sits back in his seat before turning around to speak with Ijacado. "Shur," he begins. "I have a random question to ask you. In the Academy, word spread around that you were a member of that industrialist family. The research team's earth mover was sabotaged in the night. We're hoping to catch the perpetrator by saying the item was still working. I was sent here to see if you could pull some strings to get a repair technician out to the site."