The Resilient

Arch · Feb 6, 2017

"Thank you." Garrett responded, lifting his hand to check his palm for the time. "His cool robo arm" was what his son used to call it when Garrett had the prosthetic attached. At the time he hate how unnatural it had felt but over the years he grew fond of the arm and even found life easier with it considering how many advantages it had compared to his original arm. It was certainly stronger than the old one to say the least. After checking the time Garrett sighed upon realizing he was late on reviewing the progress reports of the recalibration of their weapons systems. There were still more training drills scheduled later for the rest of the security team.

"Carry on." He spoke briefly towards Allec despite being unaware whether or not he was on duty at the time before heading back down on his way down the hallway.

The man's comment about "just one" rib being broken being good news was not surprising to Simon considering the circumstances. He could only imagine what kind of punishment was common for slaves of an alien race. Simon looked down at the scanner as the results came in confirming that aside from his injuries, John was a healthy(though malnourished) human male. Simon let out a sigh of relief and headed over to the medical cabinet to go through their cache to find the appropriate medication for John's ribs. From what he read about Earth, back in those days the best way to treat a broken rib was essentially to make the patient wait it out while moving as little as possible. Thankfully these days that was no longer an issue. Stimulating bone regeneration was all that was necessary as long as the bones did not have to be set back in place(or were not puncturing anything).

And then John mentioned Kathi's name. It was a strange thing for him to bring up and it was unlikely he became infatuated with her over the course of just meeting her on the way back to the ship. Simon would have thought questions like "what is this ship's purpose?" or "have you found any other humans?" or something else would come to mind but no, this man was interested in Kathi. Just before Simon could make a response Emma chimed in giving John some information about her. Simon waved as she left right after speaking feeling sorry in knowing that Emma must have felt out of place here with nothing to do.

"Well, Kathi's been aboard this vessel for...well since I was born, actually. The ship she came from was called the Everlasting but other than that, there's not much I can tell you." The rest of the information he had regarding Kathi was strictly confidential considering her medical condition and Simon was not about to violate that for anyone. Out of all the crew, she was the one who he had seen the most, in the professional sense at least, given her tendency to break an arm now and then in her work. Given her condition there were certain medications he simply could not prescribe. "For 25 years being here, you could say she's been here all our lives though my father would disagree. Honestly, nobody really talks much about that other ship. If you want more information, I could pry for some more about the Everlasting." Doing it himself would have been a better alternative than asking Kathi in any case. It was still a very sore subject for her and there was no need to disturb her about it when there were other methods of looking into it.

Aelin · Feb 6, 2017

The girl didn't seem to confident about what she was saying... Emma he believed it was. She spoke of children coming to the ship at one point but was not entirely sure when or any details of it, claiming it was before her time. Looking at her age he would guess she was somewhere in her twenties. She was likely alive for the same amount of time that he spent in slavery. It was a depressing thought on his end, but made him grateful that this ship still operated in such a good state. That no one here had been through what he had gone through... what he was only just escaping now.

He was staring he realized, watching Emma for a moment as he thought. John was only pulled out of this as Simon began to speak again with more confidence on the situation. The answer he got, while good news in many ways to him, still shattered his heart slightly. Hearing that name again, the name of the ship he grew up on, he didn't know how to handle it. "So it wasn't just me then..." He whispered to himself, clenching his hand into a fist. "I thought all the kids would have died... no one came to help." He muttered staring at his hands trying to sort through this new information. Part of him wanted to get up and see Kathi again, actually see her again this time knowing who she was, but part of him was scared. He was scared of the past and scared to open up to any pain that might come with facing his past again. Physical pain he could deal with, but emotional? He had spent so long trying to shut that out he didn't know what to do.

Slowly he let his eyes drift back to Simon before finally laying back with a sigh. "Thanks..." Was all that he offered, not caring to explain himself anymore. It had been an emotionally taxing day, and he did not care to deal with it any further. He was tired, but these days it seemed like a permanent state for him to be in, it really didn't mean anything. It wasn't often however that he had the chance to just lay in bed for a while during the day. As he laid there, silently staring at the roof, he realized that this was not necessarily a good thing. It gave him time to think, dwell on his own thoughts, and that was more painful than he liked to admit.

Three hours later

Two hours ago Dania had made an announcement about a meeting, open for any member of the crew to join in on if they would like. It was time to plan their next course of action. While Dania had an idea what she wanted to do, it was dangerous and could upset some people, that is why she wanted the ships approval before going ahead with the plan. As Admiral Dania strove to make things as fair and easy as possible for everyone, even if that meant extra work for herself, but she also wanted to be one for the people of the ship. The previous admiral was so caught up in finding them a place to live, that he was willing to try and train children to be super warriors of sorts. Risk the life of their young for the better of their race, as he put it. Dania disagreed and the moment she got named Admiral had put an end to it.

When everyone gathered Dania hit a switch on the control panel in front of her which brought up a holographic render of a map in the center of the table. "To start I would like to thank everyone for their efforts on the mission to rescue the human man from slavery. He is currently in the medical bay, healing up and will be joining the crew soon. You all handled the mission very well and I would like to extend my gratitude for your help on this rather impromptu mission. That is not why I have called you all here however. While the mission was a success, we cannot afford to stop and celebrate, we must press forward and continue looking for a new home as well as collecting supplies as so that we can simply survive another day, which brings me to my point."

Dania zoomed in on the 3D rendition of the map to an area that seemed to be scattered with meteors and such, In the middle was a larger mass, a planet. "Searching back through records I discovered this area. Another human vessel had believed the planet in the center to be inhabitable. Records say there is minimal signs of life on the planet, likely due to it's remote location. The last transmission received from the ship was before they entered the meteor belt, and records say it was believed that the ship never made it to it's location, instead crashing trying to navigate the belt. This was over a hundred years ago, we have not dared go near since. Our navigation systems have been updated since that ship however, I believe we stand a better chance at navigating the meteor belt now, but it is still a risk, that is why I called you here to discuss the matter. Lieutenant Commander White, do you think it is possible for you to navigate such an area? As for the rest is it worth the risk? We do not know much about the planet, but at the very least perhaps we can discover the ship that crashed there, collect supplies and parts to sell? Feel free to discuss, I want to hear any opinions on this that you have." Dania explained before taking a seat, waiting for answers and discussion to ensue.

Midnight Star · Feb 6, 2017

In the time before the meeting, Emma had successfully found herself a nice chair, right in the middle of a communal area and got some good sleep in. She'd become quite adept at napping, years of practice had meant that she could fall asleep quickly, even if the room was full of people talking. Though she was also good at sensing and waking up if she was targeted, she'd fallen victim to enough pranks to improve that skill. Her permanently on call timetable meant that it was vital for her to never be too tired to pilot at a seconds notice, she had found that napping like this was the best way to do it. She was aware that if she slept in her own bed, she would get too comfy and sleep for too long. This time around, she woke a nice amount of time before the meeting so that she could leisurely head to the meeting without rushing and take her seat at the front. She wasn't always the biggest fan of these meetings, there were many meetings that fell far out of her comfort zone and she did not know how to contribute. However, this was a meeting to decide their next destination and that was something that she was involved in.

As the meeting started, she sat calmly in her chair, smiling slightly over the praise everyone had got for the rescue mission (even if she hadn't done anything in the end). However, as the holographic map came up on the screen, she was out of her chair immediately, standing up to examine the map more closely. This was fascinating. She vaguely listened to Dania speak about the situation surrounding this but her attention was more firmly on the hologram in front of her. Her mind was doing acrobatics, working out how she could manoeuvre the ship around each obstacle.

Dania calling her pulled her out of her trance, causing her to cringe slightly with her full title. She was quiet for a moment, staring at the hologram before answering, "Well it certainly won't be easy..." She moved around the table, moving up and down to see the hologram from all angles. It not being easy was the understatement of the century. However, slowly a smile broke out on to her face and she looked at the Admiral, "But you know I love a challenge. I think I could get us through but I can't guarantee without a few scrapes. It would be a very bumpy ride. Engineering are gonna be yelling at me again." She shook her head, smiling, before pushing her hair back behind her ears and concentrating on the hologram again. She was fairly confident in her claim but there was no way she could half-ass this. If she was going to get them through this minefield, she needed to be her very best, this would be one of the hardest routes she'd ever taken. That was both exhilarating and terrifying to her simultaneously.

cstar · Feb 7, 2017

Kathi was listening intently to the discussion at hand. She knew working would keep her mind off things better than anything else. As she listened to the plans that they were coming up with, she leaned her head into her hand, supported by her elbow. She let out a chuckle when Emma mentioned engineering would be mad, a couple others did too. She was used to it at this point, since at the very least Emma could get them out of a grind. Kathi listened to a couple of other people bring up things for the plan. Eventually Kathi spoke up and said, "We can make sure some of the deflector shields are working at their optimal capacity. That way if we hit any of the rocks, which while I am certain Miss White will be able to handle fine, but for safeguards, I think we would take less damage on the ship." she knew they couldn't be hit too bad. But they generally didn't have the shields working better than 85% capacity. That was purely due to resources. But Kathi would put all her effort into that 85% if she had to.

Vladek515 · Feb 7, 2017

Cadmus had spent his free time mostly on his own reflecting upon the lines from the book even writing out his thoughts on the subject that was discussed, looking at it from a handful of angles. After what he had not realised was an hour or two he had received an invitation for a meeting. While it was optional he still felt a slight obligation to go due to his rank as Captain. So he went, he didn't feel any pride in the thanks as he had not contributed to it in the slightest and he probably should have, no matter it was all in the past. Then the hologram popped up and he studied it, and noted that Emma was too, understandable she was the one to pilot the ship however she didn't have to do it alone. "Ma'am, is there a way we could possibly circumvent this belt? Go around it or approach on a more favourable vector? I am sure the other ship tried to look into it but if we sustain damage on our way through we might get stuck on the other side." Cadmus asked the admiral, sure he didn't doubt Emma's abilities to pilot the ship, he had seen her pull them out of some rather dicey situations before, but it was always best to prepare for the worst. He couldn't help but chuckle a little when Emma mentioned engineering would be mad. "If you don't break anything too badly I'm sure they won't be too mad." He said realizing full well he was the one in charge on that department and sure he had gotten mad a handful of times, but far less frequent than any of the other people in his department. He listened to a few more of the plans being coined, some better than others, deflector shields being among the better ideas. "We're gonna need those shields if we are going to try this, good call Kathi." He said, he was thinking about a few other things they could do, like maybe increase air pressure in the inside rooms along the hull to give it a little bit more resistance to the kinetic impacts of the rocks and maybe using the point-defence weapons in emergencies to destroy smaller rocks, but they didn't seem like very good plans, just like a small idea he had but they couldn't put in practice because of the lack of resources, he wasn't entirely unwilling to try this but only if they had made a proper risk assesement.

CrownMoksha · Feb 9, 2017

Allec listen carefully to Dania's plan as the meeting went on. Flying through a meteor belt was risky in its own way though both Dania and Emma seemed confident in their chances of getting through in one piece. Hearing just how old the records were brought one question to his mind. "Given how old the records are, what if we encounter another race on the planet? "

Arch · Feb 10, 2017

Garrett folded his arms. "The weapons on this ship are fully operational. If we need to fire at a few asteroids we'll be able to clear a path but I would not recommend it as our primary strategy. It would divert too much power from our shields." He shifted in his seat as he scratched his chin. "If there are signs of life in that system, we will need to boost the sensitivity of our bio-scanners. I'll enlist Lieutenant Commander Cartwright to aid our engineers." Though it might have been fine for him to refer to his son as "my son" or just "Simon" Garrett always refused to drop the formalities in anything remotely official. The same went for Emma who was essentially like a daughter to him and when she spoke up he had to refrain from calling her by name as well. "Just go easy on the ship and the rest of the crew will worry about the rest." He directed towards her.

"I would normally agree with our Captain that avoiding this belt is a good option but I believe that this is a necessary risk. If there's even the slightest chance that there are survivors left on that planet, we must investigate."

Aelin · Feb 10, 2017

Dania listened to the conversation going on around the table, not adding her own input until everyone had their say on the issue, then she addressed them one at a time. She turned to Emma first. Emma seemed confident in her ability to pilot, and that was good. At times Dania had to admit she seemed better than her own father was when he had been pilot of the Resilient. "A few scrapes are fine, as long as the occupants are safe. If this works out well for us, we won't have to worry about the damage." Of course damage was worrisome, but if it was mainly aesthetic damage with scratches and dents, they could live with that. If the damage was more serious, she could only hope this trip would be profitable enough to pay for repairs. Kathi then commented about raising the deflector shields. Dania simply responded with a curt nod.

The next thing that was to be addressed was circumnavigating the meteor belt. Apparently she had not made things clear enough with the map. Standing up once more to more easily point out the situation, Dania zoomed in on the map closer to the planet. "The meteor belt is rather large, and the planet is here near the center. While yes the distance in towards the planet is roughly half the distance it is from entering from the side here," Dania pointed to the closest edge where they would likely enter the meteor belt from. "to navigate coming straight down at the planet would be more difficult than traveling the extra distance." She pointed out to him before taking her seat once more.

Before Dania had a chance to respond to Allec, Garret had spoken up. "Thank you Commander." She said before addressing the matter herself. "Yes it is possible that there is life already there, but perhaps we can come to an agreement with them anyways. We are running out of options at this pace, so it is a risk we have to take. As Commander Cartwright said, we will use our bio-scanners so we can at the very least be prepared if something is down there." Dania told him. "Is there anything else?" She asked.

Midnight Star · Feb 12, 2017

While the bulk of the discussion was going on, Emma did not look away from the hologram. She'd made a bold claim and she fully planned to back it up. She vaguely listened to the discussion in the background and she was glad for everyone suggesting ways to help with the journey. It was clear that this journey would be a difficult one but everyone seemed willing to work together to get through it. If they succeeded they might even find more humans, which was an incredible prospect. The whole ship would be working hard and she had a pivotal role, she couldn't afford to slack off here and disappoint them.

After the Admiral had spoken, she looked up at Dania. "Well, I think this goes without saying but I'm going to need your skills as a navigator to find the best route through this. How current is this map? Do we know if any of these asteroids are moving?" She asked, they could plot a perfect route through the belt but if the asteroids had moved, this could cause issues. If they knew which asteroids were most likely to have moved, maybe they could account for this in some way. With things like that she was glad they had navigators as she wasn't as good at calculating where things will likely be.

She rubbed the back of her neck as she thought about what else had been said, the point about other forms of life took her interest. "Additionally, if we do come across any hostiles and end up getting shot at, evasive manoeuvres would be neigh impossible. We really don't have enough space to be dodging shots." She did want to go ahead with this mission but every point had to be considered beforehand. "However, any enemy ship would be in the same situation as us, and the asteroids would provide us with some level of cover. The biggest issue would be if we went against smaller ships, like shuttle size. These might not be able to match us in firepower but they would have much more freedom to move and would have the advantage in that environment, especially if there were multiple smaller ships firing at us." That was a scary thought, being shot at and not being able to evade the shots without crashing into an asteroid. This was only a hypothetical situation though, there might be no enemies in there at all and she was just scaring herself pointlessly.

cstar · Feb 15, 2017

Kathi listened to the explanation as best as she could, but this kind of stuff wasn't really her forte. She was the one inside making the machines work, not the one with an idea on how the piloting and navigation portion of it went. But it was nearing the end of the meeting, and Kathi decided she was going to bow out early. If they were going to do this, that meant they were going to need extra precautions and she was going to need to get started right away. She stretched a little as she walked towards engineering and got started working on the robots. As she worked, she realized the higher activation of the shields had to be put on manually and Kathi took a deep breath and backed up saying, "You're kidding me. Who designed this ship?" she would have gotten one of the robots to do it, had the robot with the current issues they were working on not been the one in charge of that. She just didn't realize the shields were specifically tied to that.

Kathi pressed a button before she started suiting up for extraction and asked, "Computer, what is our current cruising speed at?"
"Our current cruising speed is 19.98 parsecs per hour."
"Fantastic... inform the bridge not to up the speed, as a worker is outside of the ship." this wasn't anything against regulation, and certainly not the fastest Kathi had been outside in. Kathi put on the helmet and said, "If danger is alerted tell them to use a red alert and I will come inside as fast as is possible. Tell them not to stop immediately if an obstacle occurs. They'll lose me."

The computer beeped in approval and Kathi motioned for two of the other engineers to be on standby in case something happened. Then Kathi put herself into the airlock and engaged oxygen and other necessary procedures before turning on the airlock and then releasing her. She held onto the grips on the ship and began to make a climb to the panel she needed. She made sure one of the bots was on standby for emergency retrieval of her and once she was at the panel, she took a minute to detail the log so others knew. She made a quick joke about how she 'wished they'd stayed docked so she could have done this with less danger' as she began activation. At one point she said, "Someone please ask the Captain if there were any other emergency preparations that needed to be taken while I am outside and at the panel."

Jael almost wished he was doing something interesting like being at a meeting about the next course of action. Instead, he was doing translation. Dania had messaged him previously about her suggestion about the next course of action so he made sure to get himself suited up for just in case they ran into the prominent aliens of the sector. He also wanted to finish up a few more documents that needed translating before anything intense was going on. He read over the documents a few times and yawned a little because he was getting tired and bored. Mostly bored.

Jael finished up one document and sent it on over to Dania and he decided to take a little break and lean back into his office chair. He had a few books in his office, and one he was reading was this very old book in an English he could barely understand. The title was Beowulf, at least he thought. He didn't know if it translated into anything grander and he didn't care too much to find out. He was slowly reading it, and it was an untranslated version, so this published version dated back several millennia. Well, it was probably a republishing. He didn't care. It wasn't like he had anyone he could chat with anyway. He figured maybe he'd get a markup of the meeting going on soon and he'd at least know what was going on with that. Until then he was content, and trying to entertain himself before getting back to the grueling work.

April was half awake and near closing her eyes before her baby was crying again. She snapped awake and got out of her chair to walk over to the crib and pick up Keith. She held him up and cuddled him saying, "Shh shh shh, baby. It's okay, mommy's here." she always did that just in case he was startled. But then she immediately checked to see if he was hungry or something else. It was something else, turned out she needed to change their diaper and she grumbled a little, but quickly moved to a place to change him up.

Little Keith wasn't that old yet, two months to be exact. So April was constantly up and worried about him. She was worried the smallest thing might make the little baby get sick or get hurt, so she was very rarely leaving the room. That caused some problems, but people were generally accommodating. Some people brought food, some people brought comfort. Most people came for Keith though. She didn't mind, but she had a strict policy that everyone could only hold him or snuggle with him after they had washed their hands and face.

A little paranoid, she knew, but the sink was right at the front anyway so it wasn't super inconvenient. April finished cleaning up Keith and putting him into a new little onesie. It was a little too cold in space for her to let him just wear a diaper only, but sometimes when they docked she let him. Like earlier. Though the entire time she was kind of just sitting at the door and glaring, just in case any aliens went hostile and attacked them. It wouldn't be the first time.

She knew there was a meeting today in regards to navigation, but she didn't go. She was on leave anyway, and if they needed to ask important questions they were welcome to invade and she was happy to help, but the baby was her first priority now. More so than herself.

Arch · Feb 16, 2017

Simon ran a hand through his messy hair though not in an attempt to tame it as that had proven to be near impossible. He shut off the screen he had been viewing and rubbed his eyes feeling that they had grown fatigued from his search through the Resilient's database for any information on the Everlasting. There was so much useless information that it was difficult to sort through it all and, from what he knew, hard copies of some of the data existed that contained information not found on the computers. Where it was though...he had no idea.

He looked over from his office to see John who Simon had already finished treating and was allowing to rest while a nurse gave his vitals another check to make sure he was not reacting badly to any of the treatments he had received. All seemed to be well so far. Simon rose from his chair and stretched out, pressing his hands to his back until he heard a satisfying pop. "Ah...better." He rolled his shoulders and headed out to the room. "How's our patient doing?"

"If all goes as planned then he'll be fully recovered in under 48 hours." The young man spoke to Simon. It was a strange feeling to think that it had only been a few years ago when he had begun his own official medical training but he had learned so much faster than his peers expected him to that the elder doctor who had once held the position Simon had now was more than just a little upset when Simon became a doctor himself. His rapid promotion to being in charge of the infirmary had only been due to the death of his own mentor leaving the continuing training of the younger medical staff up to him. ...Admittedly, Simon knew he had much to learn given the limited time he had been given to gain experience but at least he was a quick study.

"Well, if you wish to rest," Simon directed to John. "You're free to sleep here. I believe your quarters might be ready by now though. In any case, you're well enough to leave the medbay and if you want a guided tour through the ship, feel free to have my nurse here arrange for one." Simon continued to speak as he knelt over to gather several of his instruments and began placing them in a medkit in preparation for a little "house call". "And if you need me, just call me over the comm system. I just need to step out to take care of something so...feel free to do use your free time."

With nothing else to add Simon stepped out of the infirmary and headed down the corridor with the medkit in hand. He knew he was missing an important meeting but his duties as doctor came first above all else and he knew Emma(or his father) would tell him of the ship's next plans soon enough anyway.

After walking the short distance Simon stopped in front of the room door belonging to one Miss Braxter...and Little Braxter. Simon knocked on the door lightly and stood by waiting for April to open up. "It's Simon. Just dropping by to give your son a quick checkup if you don't mind."

Vladek515 · Feb 15, 2017

Cadmus listened to the Admiral and Commander when they spoke. "Oh I agree with you there, Commander, we should make the effort to find every man woman and child so humanity as a whole will find a new place. I wasn't suggesting we'd avoid the planet altogether merely suggesting the route there of minimal risk." Cadmus added and then studied the image as Dania explained it. Pulling the ship back up like that would indeed be more difficult. "You are right, Admiral, making that maneuver in that environment would be more dangerous." Then the helmsman spoke up, bringing up a few good points. "You raise a good point even with our point defence weapons we'd be hardpressed in that game of cat and mouse, maybe we could keep our own shuttles on standby to counter such a thing if it were to happen?" Cadmus offered. He then received the notification from Kathi and made note, the other bridge personnel would have it and know to follow it. "Admiral if you have no objections I'll be manning the engineering station personally." Cadmus said, he'd be managing the ships systems and making sure the critical ones wouldn't be strained too much.

Aelin · Feb 16, 2017

John laid in bed for quite some time, awake. He couldn't sleep though he probably needed it. He had spent so long with so little sleep, it was odd to get into normal habits again. There was a young man, in and out checking on him a few times before he finally reported back to the main doctor who had treated him before. 48 hours. For the damage that seemed quick, but then again the Everlasting had outdated equipment and the slave ships never gave him proper medical attention. Sitting up, he was feeling better already, though he looked terrible. The doctor came to talk to him, saying that he was okay to leave the medbay. That was good news, but he didn't know what he would do if he left.

Simon didn't stick around for long after that. He ended up leaving for a while, leaving him in the nurses care. Well care was a loose term since apparently there wasn't much to be doing with him. He was for the most part okay. He was not totally better but he was well enough not to need constant watching. If anything went terrible he could call Simon over the intercom, so basically he had to take care of himself now. It wasn't that he minded, it was weird to have someone fussing over him. It was a long time before John finally got up from his bed and grabbed the nurse. He didn't want a tour of the ship but he did ask for one thing, he asked to be brought to Kathi.

When the arrived at the area that Kathi worked, John was informed she went outside the ship for the time being. He decided to sit down and wait until she she returned back to the ship. He was anxious he realized as he sat on a random box at the back corner of the room. He didn't actually know what he would say to Kathi. Thank her for saving him... then what. They were kids together, but did she even remember? Did he even remember properly. Memories from that time were a little foggy, but Simon had confirmed it was who he thought it was. Did that even mean anything? Probably not but he had to at least say something.

Dania sat quietly considering all that Emma had to say. "The maps provided are rather recent, less than a year old. The asteroid belt does move, however it seems to be a uniform pattern in which it moves, making your job at least a little easier." She said pressing a play button on the remote in front of her. The map started to move, showing the rotation of the belt. "The speed on this is increased 5 times. They do not move fast, but they move. I will send you the files so you can study them before we set off. I will help with navigating but I will be refer to April before I return to help you. I want her thoughts on the matter." Dania informed Emma sitting back in her chair a little bit. mulling over Emma's next words

Emma had brought up a good point about being attacked. Dania was holding on to the idea that it was a dangerous area to travel and that most people wouldn't dare. Finally she spoke up. "This is why I brought it up. It is going to be a risk in several aspects. There is only so much we can do to prepared. We will move forward with the mission if everyone approves of it regardless of the risk. The deflector shields should help provide a protection against any possible attacks, but we will have to be vigilent when it comes to monitoring the surrounding area." She looked around at some of the other members that would help with that. She then looked at Cadmus. "It will be very helpful if you manned the engineering department. We will need all hands on deck ready for anything. I will leave you in charge of that. Commander Cartwright, you will be in charge of a landing crew as will as manning weapons if we come across danger. I will run the bridge." Dania rattled off a quick set of commands.

Standing up she looked at everyone, studying their faces momentarily. "You are all dismissed. We will set off in twenty four hours. In the meantime get some rest. I will be in contact with the captain and commander, setting up roles and schedules for everyone. Lieutenant Commander White, I will contact you shortly. Thank you all for attending." She said with a slight bow of her head before walking out of the conference room, planning to head straight to visit her friend April and steal some cuddle time while she spoke of navigation. Dania doubted that she would ever have a child of her own, so this would have to do.

cstar · Feb 16, 2017

Kathi finished up with the panel, having gotten everything she needed, and she tried to retreat back down to the airlock and once she was in a stable place, while oxygen was being reintroduced to the room, Kathi was taking some deep breaths to calm herself down since she was shaking a lot, but she did her best to remain stable. When the oxygen was back and she was given an all-clear, Kathi took off the helmet and gulped in, well, as close to fresh air as she could get. Anything was better than an air tank. Kathi opened up the room and placed her helmet down and said, "Computer, alert the bridge I'm back inside, and that shields are online."

One of the people in engineering gave her some water to gulp down and they went to grab her another glass while she got out of the suit and hung it up in it's allotted place. Finishing up check ins and taking the other thing of water when it was given. Kathi walked on over to go back to the robots to fix them up and she took a big gulp of water just as she noticed John out of the corner of her eye just chilling in the corner of the room and her heart skipped a beat and she covered her mouth to keep the water in. She took a few seconds to recover before saying, "Did medical lose you? I'm apparently good at hiding people who wanna get away from Cartwright's but considering how injured you seemed I highly recommend not being in engineering of all places."

She was silent for a moment before awkwardly adding another joke as she worked on the robots, "I mean unless you're reporting to your technical owner due to the signing of papers, but I'm not exactly a slave-owning type so consider that null." the only reason she was even going in this direction with conversation was because she didn't have any intention of bringing up the Everlasting on her own. And she always tried to hide the pain of the topic but the truth was just seeing him in the room like that was stressing her out, but enough years of putting on straight faces helped with that.

April heard the knock on the door and heard Simon's voice, and she readily welcomed him in saying, "Hello, and that's perfectly fine." she led him in and did her general encouraging of having people wash their hands, even though she knew Simon would probably wear gloves. She walked on over to where she'd put Keith.

Keith was just lying on his stomach in the crib since he wasn't sleeping, he was awake and being relatively playful, the second he looked sleepy April would have moved him to his back. April picked him up and carried him over to where it would be easier for Simon to work and she handed Keith to him carefully.

Keith was only two months, so there was not much he could do, but he made an excited chirp (not like an actual chirp don't go all 'ah bird child' ) and April hovered over like the cautious mother she was. Constantly looking over at the door to make sure nothing happened.

"He's been eating just fine, he's been sleeping a little less than he did a few weeks ago, I-I don't know if that's normal. He also makes this popping noise every now and again with his lips which I'm really not sure is normal either." April sounded super concerned as she said this things. Keith just looked at Simon calmly, blowing spit bubbles.

Aelin · Feb 17, 2017

From the corner he could see a figure enter the main room, it wasn't until she took her helmet off that he was able to confirm who it was. His eyes lingered. He couldn't bring himself to get up and approach her. He kept his head down for the most part, but John was still keeping an eye on Kathi, trying to remember more of those times when they were children. It was fuzzy, but he wanted to remember, wanted to have someone familiar in this strange place. Everything felt so out of wack for him. Too long had he spent in such dark, cruel places. His hands were shaking as he glanced up once more. He wasn't sure what to do, what to say, but it was too late to figure that out now. She turned and noticed where he sat in the corner.

When Kathi approached, John got to his feet to face her. "No Kathi... medical didn't lose me. They let me out. Doctor Cartwright seemed to think I am fine, or at least well enough to leave. I am not hiding Kathi..." John tried to explain before hesitating for a moment. He thought about how he much approach things from here, he didn't know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. "Kathi, I remember you. I remember the sick little kid that never failed to bring a smile to my face. I thought.... I thought you were dead. I thought that everyone I ever known was dead, and yet you are standing here... I..." No words felt like enough. "Thank you. You saved me. I don't think I could have lasted another few years in those conditions...." It has been a long time since he had spoken that much.

"Kathi, I...." He was going to continue but he started feeling a little dizzy. His head pounded slightly as he looked at her. While he wasn't physically sick, he didn't have an illness. There were aspects of his mind and body that weren't so easily fixed with physical healing. Simple things as the stress this was bringing started to bother him, and with his body working on healing and the sudden amount of medicine that he never had access to, it seemed to be having a hard time processing it all. He reached out to Kathi, looking for support but collapsed before he was able to grab onto her, passing out on the floor of the engineering room.

cstar · Feb 17, 2017

Kathi was listening to the direct content of his words for a moment and didn't know how he found out. But he was being so open with it in front of the other engineers and she herself was shaking a bit. She was taken out of it so much that when she realized John was passing out, her reaction time was too late and she ended up watching him hit the floor before she dropped down and grabbed his head to make sure there wasn't blood. If there seemed to be some sort of damage there she wouldn't have moved him herself. But since he was fine on the injury part, she picked him up and notified the other engineers what she was doing before she headed on back towards the medical bay.

Kathi had already been out of it health wise because she went out into space, but she carried him the whole way anyway and walked in and told the nurse there what happened with John before they placed him on the bed again. Then Kathi had to take a step back and a seat to calm herself down. The nurse was pretty helpful with that and fortunately she didn't pass out. But Kathi kept looking over at John as she calmed herself. She didn't know how long he would be out, but she couldn't help but feel a little pissed off over the scenario. He could have met her in private or something, and a part of her was angry that he passed out before she even had a chance at reply because of how much shock she had been in.

Kathi stared at her cup of water and swished it around as she whispered to herself, "Sick huh? You just remember me as sick? I wasn't that bad except..." she remembered the month the Everlasting sold most of the crew off as slaves in order to get as much food and water as they could manage while reaching for an SOS message. Kathi remembered how she was originally tagged to go with the group, because of her value due to her skills for more technical races that needed slaves to build machines. Then she had relapsed. And when was able to stay awake for long enough again, everyone she loved was gone.

Kathi resented John for reminding her of this pain.

CrownMoksha · Feb 17, 2017

The answer that Allec had been given was a valid one. So long as whatever potential life there wasn't set on attacking them or refuses to hear them out, they should be able to resolve thing peacefully. The risk of that not being the case was still even present, but not one that they could make preparations with the current information at their disposal. Regardless it was a bridge that they would have to cross and thus they would deal with that risk when the time came to actually cross said bridge.

When they were dismissed Allec had opted to go for a short walk before probably heading back to his quarters. As it stood right now there wasn't much that he could think to do and they wouldn't be setting off for another twenty four hours. He would likely have to come up with something to eat later, but that was something he could ponder during his walk if not in his quarters.

Vladek515 · Feb 23, 2017

The admiral didn't object to his request to man the engineering station, she probably saw the value of him taking charge of the department he was strongest at and in charge of. It'd also mean that he wouldn't be occupying the bridge where the helmsman would need to focus on getting them through in one piece. "Ma'am if you want all hands on deck, might I suggest we sound general quarters before we enter the belt." The Captain said, it meant everyone would go to battlestations and everyone would be ready for everything.

Soon after they were dismissed and the meeting had drawn to a close, before leaving though he had to look into something first, if they had 24 hours to rest up and prepare he'd prepare first and rest later. He then got the notification of Kathi being back on the good side of the hullplates, no serious incidents involved and he was glad to hear it. The bridge personnel would have received it too and responded accordingly. He waited for everyone else to leave approached Emma, who was still studying the holograms after everyone had left "Heya Emma, everything alright? And since you'll be the one bringing us through the asteroid field, is there anything engineering can do to help you out to make it easier on you?" He asked politely sitting down at the opposite side of the hologram.

Midnight Star · Feb 23, 2017

Long after the meeting was over and everybody left, Emma remained in the room scrutinising the hologram. She ducked and moved around the hologram quite a lot, zooming in on particular bits and looking from all sides. She had to figure out how to do this. It was like a puzzle that needed to be solved and not an easy puzzle. She'd already figured out various parts but there was several areas than she was yet to feel satisfied with. Of course after she had her meeting with Dania and got the navigation route, that would make things clearer for her but she couldn't afford to slack off in the mean time. It was well known that Emma hated studying and she would do almost anything to not. It wasn't that she didn't learn but sitting her down in a stuffy classroom and forcing to read a boring book and listen to stupid lectures did not work for her. In her head she visualised the various manoeuvres she'd have to do, doing the actions with her hands with invisible controls. She might look a bit silly but she'd never cared how she looked to others, plus getting this right was far more important than other people's impressions.

She was so lost in her mental simulations that she did not hear the Captain come in, only reacting by jumping a little bit when he spoke, twisting around to see him. "Oh hey Cadmus, sorry about that I was a little caught up in..yeah" She gestured to the hologram before rubbing her neck. "This is going to be a challenge. You know for once I'm not asking for power and speed." She smiled, there was plenty of times where they'd been escaping various enemies where she'd practically demanded more power or speed so they could move just that bit faster. "Nah, this time careful control is needed. I need it to be precise and responsive so it will react to the slight movements I make. The controls need to be sensitive, approximations won't be enough. There's not much margin for error here so I need it to move exactly the way I tell it to. Like I need to carefully control the speed, instead of all or nothing, I'm gonna have to vary it by slight amounts so we can get through this."

She ran her fingers through her bright read hair, "Is that a lot to ask? It's enough pressure that I will do it right and control it correctly without the fear that it won't respond to me or do exactly as it should." She knew that she should be capable of this and she could do this. However, if midway through the field the ship didn't respond to her correctly or moved more than it should, that was out of her control and could cause a disaster. She was fairly confident in the engineering department of the ship, they knew what they were doing and the ship usually did exactly as it should. It was just this time there was a lot less room for error, normally if it turned slightly too far, she could easily correct it and it didn't matter with the space they had but this time that would not be the case.

Arch · Feb 23, 2017

Simon crouched down beside the young baby and smirked as its mother gave him a brief rundown over Keith's little ticks with the very obvious hint of worry in her voice. He placed a hand on one of the bars of the crib and as he kept his eyes on the child Simon spoke towards April. "How have you been? Haven't been feeling any unusual pains since the birth?" He set down the medical case and unlocked it to retrieve a scanner to take a brief examination of Kieth. As expected, the child was a beacon of perfect health but he continued the scan, deleting the results from the previous log to begin again to look busy. "It's fine for children this young to have an irregular sleep schedule. He's probably just getting used to flexing those muscles. As for the popping noise he makes? It's probably because your son isn't human." Simon chuckled then, realizing that April just might take him seriously he quickly added, "nah. He's got a strong human heart. Just like his mother."

Simon eyed the scanner and scratched his chin. Though it would have been nice to add onto the vaccinations the child had but given his age it was still too early to give him any other doses. Running his fourth scan, and again getting the same results as before, Simon glanced over briefly at April. She had been a friend of his father's for a long time and while he could tell that his father was worried about her recent well-being given what happened to her husband, his father just did not have the time to spare to constantly check up on April. "Some fresh ship air outside this room might do him some good. Maybe on the next habitable planet we stop by, if I can guarantee its safety for your son, you should take him to feel the light of a sun." He was on his seventh scan now. "It could do you some good too. Healthy mommy. Healthy baby." Scan numero ocho.

"Children, even ones just as young Kieth here, can be quite perceptive you know. His cortisol levels, aka the "stress hormone", are just a touch above average. That can be a good thing. Over time that just means it'll help him adapt to new and potentially unnerving situations but if it gets out of control at such a young age, well that could have side effects damaging his psyche later on." Ten scans and going. Simon's tone softened up as he continued to speak. "It's really nothing to fret about so don't go all doom and gloom on me despite how scary it may seem. Emma and I had some pretty tough childhoods of our own and we turned out just fine." Simon laughed quietly to himself as he paused for a moment. Three dead parents between them yet the morbidity of it all just...never bothered him. "But every little bit that you can make easier on yourself means making your son's life easier as well. I mean, you don't have to go out and be the social butterfly you were always meant to be but taking a stroll with your son would help him familiarize himself with more than just your quarters."

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