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Main Sim - Mystery Planet - Columbia Landing Site

Posted June 22, 2022, 11:57 a.m. by Lieutenant Naomi Locke (Science Officer) (Janice B.)

Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Mystery Planet - Columbia Landing Site
[snip]

As Blackwell approached the pair, both looked curiously at the hand scanner as it beeped, bopped and hummed its way through a scan process. The scanner showed to Blackwell both were indeed human down to their genetic structure, no obviously abnormalities stood out that they could see. Both were perhaps a bit low in certain nutrients but overall were in surprisingly good shape and health given the circumstances, and the fact they had all been here for almost 150 years, plus their normal ages before 2003’s loss. The scans confirmed both in front of them were also an exact match for Rick being 45 years of age that he was in 2003 and now, in turn Kalpana was an exact match for her age in 2003 of 40! Somehow neither of these two, and presumably the rest of the surviving crew had aged a year since 2003!

Seeing the scanner and the rest seeing likely surprised in some form or another at them being alive, Rick spoke again rubbing the back of his head a bit, “..I guess you’re all surprised as we are to see you all? From your stance and looks you weren’t out here looking for us, but just stumbled here right?” he asked.

Once someone would given a confirmation he nodded again, “..Figures, well you’re probably wondering how we’re all still alive and not aged what seems a day since we got here? Well I wish I could tell you how that is, the frank answer is we don’t know. Our flight surgeon Laurel tried to make sense of it after we got here for some time, but given what little we had to work with its all theories and guess work. Finally, we just accepted it and gave up to focus on other things..” he said.

Kalpana gave a wry chuckle, “..We have postulated everything from divine intervention, to the water here being a fountain of eternal life, to aliens, to pretty much anything you can think of I guess..” she added.

”..Anyhow if you want we can take you to what passes for our humble home here, its about a mile or so back through the woods here near a natural cave system..” Rick offered. “..The others are either out hunting, smoking previous catches, or just doing some idle work back home, either way they’ll all be thrilled at this turn of events, when we heard your ship there..” he said gesturing to their nearby shuttlepod, coming roaring in from the sky to say we were surprised was to put it lightly..” he said.

GM CockRoach

El couldn’t hold her question in any further. “How did you get here?” Her tone had a tint of the incredulous, though refrained from her next statement of ‘it’s impossible!’.

  • El, Eng

Turning to El, Kalpana pointed to the orbiter. “..We had begun to descend from Earth orbit to risk reentry. We knew there had been damage to the orbiter from ice and foam during launch, but ground control felt we could risk reentry. We were half way through reentry and we felt a larger then usual shutter pass through the rear of the orbiter. A split second later some alarms began to sound, but just after that....” Kalpana gave a slight shrug as if struggling to explain the old memories. “..I’ll be honest it felt like everything moved in slow motion for what felt like an hour, but just had to be a second or so. Then a flash of light overwhelmed us and when it cleared we were still entering through the atmosphere. But instead of being out over the Pacific racing in land across the United States as our flight plan directed we found ourselves here. Though we did not realize it at the time..”

Rick took over, “..We had lost contact with ground control, and any other navigational aides. So we went manual, none of the ground mass made sense but we eventually were able to make a more or less controlled landing on this massive plateau that you see now. For the first hours we figured it was just some area of like Arizona or Texas. But the arrival of Spikers and such soon convinced us otherwise..” he said again pointing to a 20 or so of the massive flying insects overhead. “..We soon realized we weren’t in Kansas anymore to borrow an old phrase. Eventually we rigged up that water wheel you see, jury rigged the radio to send out a broadcast every hour or so, and settled in to wait. As days became weeks became months and years, we eventually gave up on ever being rescued and settled in to just live out our lives here.” he said.

Naomi was curious as she listened to the group’s conversation. She frowned at the data frowned and immediately considered the reasons for this. There wasn’t many even with the ever growing lifespan of humans over the eons. This sparked her curiosity enough to speak up.

“How of you are there?” The question was expected from an someone with a thirst for knowledge.

-ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci

”..Just the seven of us. We have explored much of the local region here. But no other signs of intelligent life ever came up on this planet..” Kalpana said.

The obvious answer would be seven, shy of children. Two women. Five guys at last from the bit that she had caught. A hundred fifty years. How did ‘that’ work? No quarrels. The implication in what this ‘Rick’ said was that the others were back there. The seven. No children? Why was it these two who came? After a century and a half there would be the potential of many children. But if they didn’t age, what of them? Were there any? More impossible things. El glanced up at the surrounding buzzing insects and thought of the animals, these ‘spikers’. Were they similarly affected in some way? Would they be? Pros. Cons.

As if also sensing the unasked or implied question, Kalpana went on, “..Before you ask no there are no children from us. We um....well tried but whatever thing allows us to remain as old as we were when we got here, also meant we couldn’t have children..” she said

El was excited about being on this now second new world, breathing new air, seeing new .. critters. She glanced back to the shuttle. She and Aelef had been brought down to work, what, engineering things? That won’t fly again. Even if they manage to work in her machine shop for parts. There was no runway. They would need to put the shuttle on the Bonnie and launch her from that. But she was too far gone in age and damages. She glanced back to the two. And a century and a half away from any flight training. What use would ‘they’ be here, her and Aelef, at this point? Still, being here was exciting - but for the impossibility of it all. How was this possible?

  • El, Eng

Ari listened to the couple and shook her head. “We sincerely appreciate the offer of refreshment, but it’s probably better if we didn’t. At least until we figure out a few things.” She laughed lightly to keep the conversation easy.

Rick seeming happy for the change of topic nodded, “..As you wish..” he said.

Just then, something dawned on her. “I know this seems like a silly question, but humor me, please.” She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “Just how long have you guys been here? I apologize for all the questions, but I hope you understand our curiosity.” She smiled again hoping she didn’t sound pushy.

She had asked because when one of them had asked how many of their group there were, it occurred to her that in over a century, there should have been a flock of folks. Perhaps there were and they just hadn’t seen them, yet. But if there wasn’t… Then time was the next curiosity factor. If they felt it had only been a few years or a decade, even, then they had a bigger problem. And a bigger one, beyond that, was … If their longevity was tied to the planet… what would happen if they left its surface?

Ari CO

”..Roughly speaking? About 148 or so years? We figured out that this planet has about the same length of 24 hour period of day/night that Earth does. Its trip around the system here is slightly longer though about 370 days locally..” he said.

Kalpana then decided to ask probably the question most burning on her mind, “..Um…so how is Earth?” she inquired.

GM CockRoach

Just as this question got asked, there was a slowly growing rubble in the air above them followed by a distant sonic boom crack. The swarm of 20 some spikers overhead flew off as through the cloud cover the Bonaventure made a obviously controlled descent from orbit to hold in a moving circular pattern about 40,000ft up. Why this had been done by the XO was anyone’s guess, since well he had not the foresight to tell the CO and company why he was doing it or warn them. The swarm of 20 spikers after recovering some distance away it seems just got ticked about this new much larger ‘intruder’ into their air space, and so began to swarm around the ship and land in places on the hull using their spikey tails to ‘attack’ the ship. Of course they couldn’t really do any damage to the ship right?

Kalpanna and Rick seemed stunned by this sudden appearance. “..Holy mother of God!” Rick said, “..is that your space ship?!?” Rick and Kalpanna then said in awe.

GM CockRoach

Naomi digested her thoughts over the answer. Whatever phenomenon had occurred, it affected more than their age. Her lips curled into a thoughtful frown as she considered the possible causes. The sounds of the ship lowing in low caught her attention. Her eyes jerked skyward in time to see the Spike swarm ascendant to meet it.

“Yes, it is. And now it has gotten some unwanted attention.” Thinking fast through her anxiety, Naomi turned to the others.

“I’m not sure what the XO is thinking, but I don’t think having a swarm of bugs on the ship is good. Does anyone have any idea how much beating the hull can take before it ruptures?” She suspected they had little time before the ship crashed down into the planet.

“Or how we can get them off without putting ourselves at risk?”

-ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci


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