Roleplayer Guild - Roleplay Forum

Captain Argos Thalian awoke from cryosleep as the Helios' automatic revival systems awoke him and the ships crew at the edge of 18 Scorpii. The deployment teams still slumbered. It was a two month deceleration for the planet, an operation only trusted to human control.

For two months they worked throughout the night and day such as it was in shifts fighting to bring the vessel down to orbital velocities and curve them into the fourth planets orbit.

Once they were stable the crew of the Helios looked with horror at what the sensors were telling them, at least in part, it was with hesitation that they began to defrost the deployment team.



Kargos awoke to the sensation of numbing cold stabbing into each and every sense and particle of his body before it began to fade before the relentless press of an ever increasing dull heat.

A smell like tarnished mint filled his nose as the cryofreeze melted into a gas and was drawn off by the pods filters into the cryo-tanks. Kargos realised as the memories came back that he really hated cryofreeze.

But he emerged from it dry, grateful, and with a monstrous need to take a piss. The sort of piss a man only has once or twice in a lifetime, unless they're into regular cryofreeze.

Indeed it was something of an anomaly that people needed to urinate at all after Cryofreeze because they were required to do so prior to being frozen, thus when they awake they should have empty bladders but they never do.

A tech helped him out of the pod with some difficulty, Kargos wasn't a small man by any measure. The tech was a cute young woman too and noticed certain attributes beneath his cryo jumpsuit. "'cuse me miss, I need to hang a piss, where's the dunny?"

With a smile she pointed towards the bathroom at the end of the cryo-chamber. Across the room all the other deployment team members were being defrosted as well.

Kargos stood for ten minutes pissing into the urinal feeling as if he were just pissing the years away, which technically he was, they'd all been frozen for nearly fifty years.

Soon the others began to filter in to take their urinals for a test drive, or stall in case of the females on the project.

Over the shipwide comms the bathroom and cryo-rooms speakers came to life.

"This is Captain Thalian, Deployment team to the briefing room in two hours." The mans voice was worried.

Kargos looked at the nearest speaker. "Shit, he sounds like he wants to be doing what we are doing." He gave his member a shake and folded it back into its receptacle before going to wash his hands.

Going to the room that was reserved for the deployment engineers he drew on the work clothes used, vacuum sealed when the helmet was on. Opening his locker he drew out his equipment and placed them piece by piece into their receiving pockets and belt spots. On his right hip he placed the old Metalstorm pistol, in his belt he shoved a dozen of the replacement barrels full of ammunition. He left the shotgun and its ammo barrels in place with the mines and grenades for the moment.

He turned around as the tech came into the room. "All ready to be a hero?" She asked.

"Hero?" Kargos said with a grin as he took her into his arms. They'd only been married a couple of months before ending up on this boat. He sobered up. "No, something about this stinks, something tells me we're not going to like what we find." The instant shift on her face confirmed it. "What?" He asked.

"I, I can't. The Captain forbid us to mention anything we saw, that's what the briefing is for." She said laying her head against his chest. "I just want to go home now my love." The sound of her voice filled with fear filled his own chest with terror. It wasn't bad. It was catastrophic.

She left to conduct her duties once the other Engineers started filtering in, they all saw the look on Kargos' face. "What is it?" One of them asked.

"It's bad. Very very bad." Kargos said.

"What do you mean?"

"It's bad enough that apparently most of the ships crew feels it would have been better if we packed up and went home, immediately." Kargos grabbed his Shotgun, ammo and mines.

__________________
Kadaeux and vslayer: Emperor and Empress of noob Pawnage.[/CENTER]

As she came out of the cryofreeze chamber, Natasha Labiera took a great gulp of the freshest air she'd breathed in sixty years. Admittedly, it wasn't the freshest hair in the universe, but it was the freshest air in their corner of the universe that they were in. She grinned a little when she saw the queue of people lining up for the facilities, but opted to wait.

She went into the room for her department and found her assigned locker, punching in the numbers for her combination. The locker swung open and she pulled out her uniform, being dressed in nothing but grey trackies and a black tank top was giving her goosbumps on her arms and chills underneath her feet. She had not wanted to wear shoes while being frozen for sixty years. Her legs were a little stiff, but they were getting better the more she walked around.

The uniform fitted well, although maybe just a little bit loose, she'd lost weight in that capsule, not really the best thing for someone who was already thin. Now she was just a little bit bony, great. Natasha tightened the straps on her boots and tied her dark hair into a bun, grimacing as she felt the oil making the strands ropy and disgusting. She made a mental note to wash her hair at the first possible opportunity.

Natasha gave herself a quick look over in the mirror, slid all of her knives into their appropriate pouchs, grabbed her gun, and went to find her superior.

__________________

Clicky for Kate ---v---

As Veelix was defrosted, only one thought was going through his mind.

Why the hell did I sign up for this?

He stepped out of the cryofreeze chamber in a black tank top and boxers. He started to shiver slightly, barely noticeable.

"Just a bit chilly in here.

Veelix walked over to the lockers on the other side of the room, punching in his combination, grabbing a pair of jeans, his tool-belt, an EMP grenade, his trusty PX4 and holster, and the plasma torch. He fitted them into the correct places on his body, slinging the suit over his shoulder.

"I'll put this thing on when we get ready to go."

He hears the announcement over the intercom, and Immediately heading towards the bridge.

__________________

With the darkness of his mind fadding affay for reality, Glenn felt an icy sensation in his limbs. Giving his arms a quick swing sent a shockwave of stabing pains down his body followed by a "Ahhhh hell ya! nothing like some freezing pain to tell you good morning." Then the warnth of the ship sank in and the doors began to opened. "I'd better get to shoot something after all this." as the Tech came over to help him but stoped when noticing his close were on the floor and not him. "Oh, sorry," Glenn said, "I sleep in the nude, If I don't I tend to overheat," He then chuckled at his remark.

Then came his least favorite part of cryofreeze. He was hit with the largest sensation to urinate he has ever had. He grabbed his close and ran off saying back behind him, "I apoligize for my 'performance' but I just got out of a freezer, and it is making him sick, he's about to 'vomit' everywhere if I don't find the bathrooms."

Ignoring the points and giggles of everyone he past, he reached the restrooms. But all the urinals were all taken. They always made it so that the last guy unfrozen was the one that lost the race to the spill wall. So he took a stall, Ignoring the others remarks about him running naked to one of the stalls, he released his pressure. This pee was a good one to, that kind that brings a shiver up your spine.

About seven minutes later he shook off, Through the close on, and went to his locker. Opening it he put his uniform on and grabes his handgun and Hk416. He took Three grenades and seven clips of ammo. After placing everything into place, he began to walk off to the briefing room.

Getting their an hour and a half early he decided to do what any person in a frozzen slumber for sixty years would do. He took a nap. After awakening he went inside.

Once inside he looked out the window at the wreckage and said "Cool, who's rock?" He had no simpathy for death, which is probably why he was so good at killing. Any small amount of feeling for death died with his parents. Seeing everone who heard his remark he quietly sat down.

Kargos spent most of the two hours excercising and making sure there were no residual side-effects of the cryofreeze before sitting down for a good sized meal. One didn't skimp on food after a long cryofreeze.

It was about then that he noticed that all the portals looking out of the ship were closed and had been closed since they were awoken from cryosleep.

Something was vastly wrong. Miranda's reactions and expression said it was real bad. The Captain sealing up the exterior viewports was confirmation that it wasn't bad. It was probably cataclysmic.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As he entered the briefing room he noticed something immediately.

The rooms rear view portal was open and it hung there. Not intact but there nonetheless.

The Leviathan of Hope hung there in a single ruined piece. Kargos could see where several of the city-drop landers had launched and made for the surface, buy the fact he couldn't see them or their wreckage he presumed that they had made it to the surface.

"By the Gods." Kargos muttered audibly as he took a seat, he couldn't tear his eyes from the vista before him. There were sections large enough to fit the Helios within that looked like they'd been created by explosives, probably fusion.

The hull was pockmarked with impacts from space and explosive decompressions from within. Her hull was burned to the metal below leaving it shining there in the halflight of the sun.

From its heart a spear of rock went through one side and out the other, a casual guess would have said to anyone that the asteroid was almost two hundred kilometres long.

"By the gods." Kargos said.

__________________
Kadaeux and vslayer: Emperor and Empress of noob Pawnage.[/CENTER]

"Goddammit"

Brody Entropy pushed the cryochamber's door wide, almost knocking the off it's hydraulic railings. The cryochambers always made people feel stiff. That was a fact. Just couldn't be avoided. However, when a little less than half your body was made of metal alloys and cybernetic wiring, well, things got really really stiff. His own reprocessing system recycled the majority of the water in his body, but it didn't recycle everything. A small percentage of it just wouldn't be reused, and this little bit, stacked over and over and over while in the chamber was the primary reason Brody was suffering through the aches and pains of his thawing metals and running down the halls of ship. His bladder had shrunk over time, since the reprocessing took care of mostly everything, but DAMN! this was just too much.

After he'd relieved himself, Brody spent a few minutes reconfiguring his systems and performing little bits of maintenance on himself at his locker. He snagged the couple of meal replacement bars he'd left out for himself and made a brief check of his gear. Yeah, everyone was frozen away for the trip, but Brody was a creature of habit, and he habitually checked his gear, maintained his cyber-systems, and smoked cigarettes. His lungs weren't organic anymore, so he could enjoy the effects of the nicotine in his system, without the consequences of dying.

He couldn't remember whether or not he was on the deployment team. He assumed he was. That was his job throughout his entire military career, jumping into hot spots. But, you know, maybe this was a scientific thing. His memory was shitty. Too many hits in the head, falls, punches, rounds. They take a toll. He was gonna have to get some memory receptors put in sometime. Shrugging, he grabbed his smokes and sat down on the ground, back against a locker. If he was on the team, he had two hours. If not. He had all day. He lit his cigarette, not really caring if smoking was permitted in this area, and let himself consciously relax as he thawed out.

Jarek Thorn slowly faded into reality as he awoke from cyrosleep, feeling an odd icy sensation, like he was being stabbed....everywhere. He had never before been in cyrosleep, and after that experience, he wasn't sure if he ever wanted to again.

After the cyrofreeze had melted into a gas, Jarek stepped out of the pod, still with an odd sensation from the cyrofreeze. He shook himself, trying to get rid of the feeling, then immediately stopped, realizing he wouldn't. He wasn't sure if he could ever forget that sort of feeling.

Suddenly, an odd sensation ran through him, and Jarek groaned. He had been told that, after cyrosleep, especially a long one, one would feel the extreme urge to urinate. However, Jarek never imagined he would have to urinate this much. Groaning again, he sprinted off towards the bathroom, which seemed to be a seemingly gathering room for the deployment team.

Luckily, Jarek made it to the bathroom before too large of a crowd formed, and he was able to find an open urinal. He let out a sigh as he relieved himself. After nearly ten minutes, Jarek finally left the urinal to wash his hands.

After washing his hands, Jarek let out a sigh as he thought about what he was about to do. He was he didn't know how from Earth, where he had lived his whole life, and would most likely never see any of his friends or relatives again. Maybe, he thought, this wasn't the right choice. He looked up in the mirror and groaned. He was only twenty. Shaking his head, he splashed his face with water, then cleaned up and headed off towards the deployment engineers' room.

Along the way to the room, he noticed something strange. Some of the crew members, almost all of them actually, looked as if they had seemed something terrible. He tried to ask them what was wrong, but none of them gave them a straight answer, instead mumbling something about not being able to tell him. Jarek felt fear creep into his heart, and these thoughts still sped through his head as he walked into the engineers' room.

Still silent, Jarek walked into the room, and started throwing on his work clothes. Punching in the code on his locker, he drew out his two .40's and, after admiring them for a moment, fit them into his holsters on his back. He immediately began putting the rest of his equipment where it belonged, with his knife on his chest, his bipolar torch on his chest, and the rest of his engineering equipment into his backpack, which he slid onto his back. His extra ammo for his pistols went into side pockets on his backpack, with a few at his side for easy access.

When he was finished, he left the room and wasted the remaining one and a half hours by just wandering around the ship. He remembered he was hungry, so he decided that he would have a meal before they would have to leave. He wasn't sure how long it would be before he had a nice, big meal again.

Soon enough, it came time for the briefing. As the time drew nearer, Jarek became more and more anxious. The fear that he had felt earlier had left him, but now it returned. He could definitely sense the crew's agitation now, and it seemed to leak from them into him. He tried to shake it off, but he just couldn't. These thoughts still played through his head as he walked into the briefing room. And he froze.

At the rear view portal he saw the Leviathan of Hope, though not as the pictures he had seen depicted it. It was torn, it was destroyed. Jarek walked up to the portal and placed a hand on it, as if to reach out to the ship. "How..." he started to say, but his voice stopped in his throat. His shock was still obvious on his face as he took his seat, and buried his head in his hands.

__________________
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

Like most who were unaccustomed to cryostasis, Wade wasn't expecting the need to use the facilities so soon. Unlike most, however, he was more interested in the reason for it than the actual need itself.

Maybe it's just residual moisture from prefreeze digestion... Drink fluids, it doesn't make it into the bladder before freezing, it'll expand and make the need greater after... Or maybe it's the gas... Or maybe it's just one of those things... He though, calmly getting out of the tube unassisted. He jumped down to the deck and immediately began stretching his limbs. A few push-ups got his arms normal, and a few seconds laying on his legs warmed them up sufficiently. Once he could move his joints properly, he made his way to the bathroom, standing in line with the other recently defrosted folks.

After what had to have been the best piss he'd ever taken, Wade was directed to equipment storage. His locker had his name on a nifty little LED screen, and it read "Yang, Wade - Medical" in cheerfully average lettering. Shrugging, he opened the locker, and dropped his cryogenic suit. He'd already determined that his favorite organ was in one piece at the urinal, but he didn't look over the rest of his body. Most of his skin felt normal, but there were a few patches that seemed loose, like the sensation one had after a mild burn. It wasn't anything serious, but he made note of it nonetheless.

After his self-examination, Wade hopped into his bodysuit. It covered the entirety of his body, with the exception of his hands, neck, and head. His was designed for medical personnel, to provide maximum coverage in case of chemicals or other such things that could be dangerous if unnoticed. Apparently, they couldn't have him contract a disease when he knelt down, but putting his bare palms all over a bloody soldier was no issue. His hands were left exposed so he could retain his sense of touch, which was often important. And his head was exposed for obvious reasons.

After his bodysuit had sealed, Wade slipped on the pair of light grey fatigue leggings that were folded and set inside the locker. Before he put on his belt, he tugged on his combat boots and bloused his trousers, tucking a few inches of material into his boots and tying them. Once his shoes were secure, he buckled his belt and looked into his locker once more. He squatted down and opened a drawer at the bottom, removing his weapons. His P228 was holstered and magnetically attached to his lower back. The extra clips were stuck onto his ribs, and his blades were situated normally. His long knife went onto his left arm, with the hilt resting at his elbow. His karambits were tucked into the left side of his belt. And his folding knife was dropped into his right pocket. Once he was equipped, Wade stood up and checked his reflection. Solid black eyes looked back at him from the small mirror in his locker, and his hair was plastered over his forehead. Sighing, he ran his fingers through it and spiked it back. There wasn't much he could do to his eyes, but his hair, at least, was workable. He didn't need to shave, since he had done it a few hours prior, biologically speaking. In chronological terms, he'd gone a few decades without a shave, but such oddities were common in the age of cryogenics.

"Briefing room, eh...?" Wade muttered, checking his wrist-pad. Recent... Well, recent sixty years before... Developments in technology had seen the creation of paper-thin computer monitors, and nickel sized processors. Of course, these had minimal function, other than basic PDA type applications. But, it worked for his need. Wade pulled the screen out, unrolling nearly a foot of scientific magic. The screen displayed several options, and Wade pressed one of them. A map was brought up, and it gave him a very basic layout of the Helios. After a moment, he found his way, and released the screen, grinning as the elastic conductor was pulled back into his wristband. Also, it was eight thirty in the morning back on Earth.

A few minutes later, Wade walked into the briefing room. He was about to ask what the situation was, but he quickly determined that for himself. The Leviathan of Hope was a fossil in the vacuum. Some part of him begged to search it for survivors, but most of him knew that it wasn't worth the risk. His objective outlook kicked in, and he simply shook his head at the sight of the massive floating graveyard.

"I assume this is the reason for brief?" Wade said grimly, approaching the window slowly. His mind unconsciously ran over the likely C.O.D.'s for most of the Leviathan's inhabitants. The probable causes didn't have much variation, but there were a great number for each one. The asteroid spear was likely the top cause, either crushing or scattering the bodies into space. Others had likely been taken out by the explosive decompression, or life support system failure. He eventually stopped, standing by the viewport and staring, quite literally, into space.

__________________

Natasha had just spent an hour in meditation and now, staring at what remained of the might Leviathan, she felt like it had done her no good. Bile rose up in her throat and she swallowed it back down, gramcing slightly in distaste.

This was not supposed to have happened, she thought, all of those people, they were not supposed to have died.

But thinking about the one billion people who were probably now all dead just made her feel sicker. Despite being a soldier; Natasha had never been fond of death, especially on a mass scale such as this. Particularly on a mass scale such as this. She felt like blaming someone, everyone, every bit of machinery on that ship, but part of her was pointing out that maybe this could not have been prevented. An asteroid was a force of nature, unstoppable, and they could have tried to change the inevitable. They could have tried.

The Leviathan had been MIA for over 160 years, and destroyed for how long... only God knew at this point. It stood to reason; no one had survived.

Natasha closed her eyes, regained her self control, and took a deep breath of air.

"So," she said, "what do we do now?" Her were fingers twitching unconciously at her sides as she tried to prevent her imagination from taking over.

__________________

Clicky for Kate ---v---

Captain Argos entered the room once everyone had arrived.

"Welcome to 18 Scorpii. I'm sure you can all see the reason you were defrosted out there in the viewport." He said without a hint of a smile or mirth. He took this deadly seriously. And how could you not.

"Sir, why aren't we just packing up and turning back?" Kargos asked, simply because someone had to.

"At first glance what do you see Kargos?" Argos asked.

Kargos examined the scene. "Asteroid impact between core and third brace ribs. Possible explosive decompression on decks 89 though 344, Power loss. Several colony drop-city modules missing, three speared through by the Asteroid."

"Very good, its obvious why you're the Chief Engineer on the deployment team." Argos his a holographic projector slate on the table. "Now what do you see.

"Fuck. Me. A dozen massive engines, likely fusion, claws are grappling onto the Leviathan. Pits suggest possible weapons emplacements." Kargos began to rattle off. What stunned the rooms occupants wasn't that Kargos knew these things, he was a Chief Engineer after all, but that he was describing emplacements on the Asteroid, not the Leviathan.

"Your assessment Kargos?" The Captain asked.

"The Leviathan wasn't hit by accident, she's been rammed, and boarded." Kargos said honestly.

"Correct. At least thats what the sensors on a bypass saw. There has been no large scale decompression, other than three of the drop-cities that appear to have been launched prior to impact there is a large amount of secondary damage, damage consistent with weapons fire. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Leviathan was attacked." He let a pause as the information sunk in. "Sensors confirm both human and alien life-signs. You will be going over on the shuttle to infiltrate and get as much intel as possible."

"Any Questions?"

__________________
Kadaeux and vslayer: Emperor and Empress of noob Pawnage.[/CENTER]