Entering With No Stage Directions

Posted on Sun Nov 18th, 2018 @ 4:30am by Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci & Captain Benjamin Ingram Dr & Lieutenant Commander Meilin Jiang
Edited on on Tue Feb 11th, 2020 @ 11:05pm

Mission: S1E1: Welcome Home, Now Go Away
Location: Canopus Station, Command Centre, Messier 4 Globular Cluster
Timeline: MD1 10.20AM

The literature, thin though it was, suggested Phase Space Acceleration travel was harmless as long as you were shielded from the exotic energies of the higher dimensions. No melting in bulkheads or quantum phase shifted duplicates or screaming subspace daemons and the like.

Just the knowledge that if the physical shielding was compromised during transit, you would arrive at your destination with a crippling neural dysfunction and an inability to parse tenses.

They didn't say a thing about a splitting headache that was attempting to carve Benjamin Ingram's skull in two. He leaned against the console he'd chosen as the place to stand and pose for the holocams. A historic moment like this, the record needed to show a firm hand on the wheel.

Now the camera's might just see him lose his lunch, and on his first day too.

"Some...body say something," Benjie said slowly, not trusting his mouth to keep in what his stomach wanted to eject.

Although Mara was also plagued by a headache, she had prepared for this jump by studying everything she could on the mechanic of it. She had poured over texts describing the effects on the human body and had theorized that the best way to come out functional on the other side was to do it on an empty stomach and having drink at least a liter of water just before.

So, she had. And now she had a small headache, but no nausea. So, she stepped forward and faced the holocameras. Giving her best ‘I’m the absolute sweetest, most innocent person you will ever see in your whole life’ smile, she said, “this is chief Engineer Mara Ricci. Operation Giant Leap is a success. We have arrived!”

"Given the failure modes for a Phase Space Accelerator jump are somewhat spectacular, I'd taken that as a given," Benjie said as he walked to a wall mounted cabinet marked with the medical staff symbol. He opened the cabinet and pulled out a medical kit, leafing through the dermal patches until he found one suitable for clearing his head.

"Run the Command Module through a diagnostic, and Meilin if you could be a dear and determine if we've landed within range of our destination," Benjie said with a happy sigh, as the patch adhered to his skin and his headache magically vanished behind a curtain of medication.

Meilin's eyelids fluttered as she descended from her enlightened state of mind. Meditation, it was now proved, offered even more benefits than just spiritual. "Aye, sir," she said, cool and even, with minimal disorientation. Her thin smile may have been at Benjie's expense, but she would never admit it.

After performing routine scans, Meilin's thin smile turned rigid. "Commander, we have indeed arrived as calculated, but I cannot locate the other modules. If they survived transit, they are not in local space."

"Well that can't be so," Benjie said, quickly brushing aside the fresh bouquet of panic that had been delivered to him. He quickly stepped across the command centre, designed in the classic circular style with a raised dais for the central operations table. After a quick biometric check, the computer unlocked itself cheerfully, and a holographic map sprang to life over the table.

"There we are. A damn sight closer to Messier 4 than the Traveller ever got. Just inside the heliosphere of the colony system too..." his fingers brushed over the controls, as various astrometric phenomena appeared. "Dammit it all, they should be here! Can we increase the sensor range? We might not see them now, but if they're a foot past our sensor horizon we'd never know."

"Long-range sensors can be enhanced through narrowing the bandwidth, but that would be at the expense of broad sweeps," Meilin said, her brow raised in having to explain elementary sensor function to a man of science. "Without knowing where to look, it would be but a drop in the ocean." She canted her head in thought. "Of course modulating sensor sweeps might get lucky and find something. I'll begin them at once."

"Belay that order," Benjie said, holding up a hand and gesturing to the display. On it a glowing red line raced from the edge of the system, curling in viciously to encircle one of the larger gas giants of the system. "We need to prepare the ship-...I mean the station for its orbital entry burn. It's locked onto the colony beacon."

He turned back to look at Meilin and Mara, and the other Ops crew.

"To be fair, this is not how I envisioned our beginnings here. But one problem at a time. Mara, Meilin I want you both to make a quick structural survey of the Command Module. I want you to check the supplies we have lashed into the makeshift container port that's filling up the main docking space. If we begin to flip the Module for the breaking burn, having a half million tons of freight bouncing around might be the least of our worries."

He then placed a hand on his chest.

"I will stay here, along with the support crew, and attempt to ferret out the location of our other modules using your modulated sensory sweep idea. We'll also send a message package to the colony to announce our arrival," he said, looking around the spacious command centre. Only a quarter of the stations were manned, the others ready to be staffed when the base went fully operational.

Building for the colonial administration to come...

"We have...roughly eight hours to accomplish securing the station for its breaking burn. Keep me apprised of any further complications," Benjie finished. "Any questions?"

"No, sir." Meilin glanced away from him and smiled at Mara, her old friend from the Palatine.

"Good, good," he said, tapping the side of the holo table. "Tempus fugit."

Mara, unlike her crewmates, was unconcerned about the location of the other modules. From her understanding, sometimes during a jump, something went wrong and whatever was sent didn't show up for a couple of days. It probably had to do with an incomplete understanding of quantum mechanics. "Aye, sir," she replied. "We'll handle it. And don't worry about those modules; I'm sure they'll turn up." She turned to Meilin. "Ready?" she asked simply.

"After you," Meilin said with a deferent dip of her head.