Log:Space Team, Prologue

Space Team 2015/09/02 Quiet

6

There was a security job posing on the more legitmate freelancing sites for mercenaries. There was promises of seeing the stars! Adventures in space! And a cozy job acting as the town sheriff, essentially, and keeping the peace on the Intergalactic Space Station that's currently orbiting the Earth. The pay was extremely good, and it also meant some time off-earth to help keep a REALLY low profile surface-side.

Normally, low-profile and adventure are rather mutually exclusive. Quiet, or rather her mild-mannered alter-ego, learned this the hard way rather quickly. Down time was always uncomfortable after the initial revelry. Now... it's maddening. It is no surprise that she signed up the moment she learned of the posting... before even noting the payscale.

One week later, or three days before our visiting crew got stranded on the space station, transport was arranged to take Quiet to the space station. She was met at the Landing Field near Starguard, where a small shuttle craft was waiting to take her and some supplies and tools up to the space station.

On the air strip, a young Starguard pilot in a flight suit waits, helping load up crates onto the shuttle craft.

For the moment, Quiet's persona may not be so detrimental. A mercenary is what was requested, afterall. She approached in armor, carrying a hardcase currently filled with alternate supplies as her suit is worn. Her helm dips to the pilot in greeting and announcement before she stows her own gear. After that, she readily joins in helping with the cargo loading. She's used to a team effort; one more reason her quasi-retirement is difficult. Besides, the bird isn't going anywhere until its loaded

"Hey, you must be my passenger! Quiet, right? Strange name. Why do they call you that?" asks the plucky pilot. "I'm Stevens, by the way." He straightens up from loading up a supply crate and extends a hand.

Quiet rolls pauldrons in a casually wry shrug before taking the hand in a firm handshake. Perhaps her lack of spoken answer will be the best answer. It is hardly the first time someone's asked or commented on the name or speech patterns.

The young, brown-haired pilot grins awkwardly. "Ah. Got it. Well. This'll be a boring flight, I guess." The crew finish loading up the Sky Saber class shuttle. Stevens climbs aboard the shuttle. "Strap yourself in and make yourself comfy." The central part of the ship is lined with seats along the sides of the hull with harness straps. Stevens swings himself up into the pilots seat and starts doing a pre-flight check, flipping toggles and pressing buttons.

This isn't Quiet's first rodeo... though it is her first out of orbit. She nods to her refreshingly plucky pilot, and observes his walk to the cockpit as she sits down and buckles in. Then she has little to do but wait. The craft gets some attention and scrutiny. She's familiar with several craft, but this isn't one of them.

Stevens slaps a button and the hatch door swings down and locks into place. "Ladies and ...lady, welcome to Starguard Air, this is your pilot speaking." The engines start to spin up as he talks. "Please stay in your seats until we take off, and the no-smoking sign IS on. The weather is a comfortable 76 degrees with 0 winds on the Intergalactic Space Station today. Well, it's that every day. So sit back and enjoy the--"

"Wrap it up, Stevens, you're already behind," says an irritated voice over the comms.

Stevens loses his place and sighs. "Right, Captain. Requesting permission to take off."

"Permission granted."

The shuttle starts to move. Upwards, from the feel of it, as the engines begin to roar.

It's almost a shame that Stevens can't see her grin.... though Lien doubts he'd find it as amusing as it's meant to be. The thought is banished as the shuttle starts to move, and she leans back into the seat.

As the shuttle starts to move up higher, in slowly begins to move forward as well. It rotates towards the east as it picks up speed. It's like being in your typical hover-craft at first. Until it gets over the water.

Once it's out of city limits, Stevens flips up a covered switch and the rockets engage. Suddenly, there's a burst of speed that pins Steven to his seat. He can be heard laughing happily as they streak up towards the atmosphere. He's definitely enjoying himself. "Whoohoooo!!" he hollars.

"Stevens, stop yelling in the comms--" says the irritated captain, who is cut off as Stevens smacks the comm system.

"Whoops, looks like the comms are busted. No where was I? Oh, right. WHOOHOOOO!!" Stevens says as the windows flash orange with the light of breaking through the atmosphere.

Quiet startles at the sudden acceleration and quickly crosses her arms in front of her and grabs the harness in reflex. It wasn't expected, and she is oriented perpendicular to the direction of travel. Thus, no comforting seat back to be pressed into. Once the surprise passes, she ...would laugh at Stevens if she could. Nothing better than someone who enjoys their work. It's also a bit nostalgic of when she first learned to drive. On a ten ton APC.

After escaping the earth's atmophere, the rattling and bumpy trip suddenly feels like a smooth gliding flight. And gravity ceases to hold people down. Some of the unbuckled harness belts begin to float around as the shuttle cruises for the space station.

True to her name, it is a quiet flight. It takes about thirty minutes to get to the Intergalactic Space Station. Part of that may be because Stevens is taking a flight path that allows one to enjoy the view of earth.

Soon, the station is in view. It's a large floating city by the size of it. A giant ring with a central axis...almost like a wheel. It looks like it has three different docking bays along the outer ring. There's signs of construction here and there. There's some crews doing a space walk, doing work on the outer hull as they pass and head towards Docking Bay 2. Each docking area has a shuttle bay with atmosphere retention fields. One each side of the shuttle bay are long umbilical bridges for larger ships to dock.

Stevens brings her about and pulls in to the shuttle bay, hitting the reverse thrusters to take her in slow and steady. A blue field surrounds the ship as it goes through the retention field, and the shuttle slows to a stop and lowers down to land on its landing gear.

Stevens flips a few more switches and the engines wind down. "Smooth sailing all the way," he chuckles happily, beginning to unbuckle as the shuttle's sidehatch door opens.

Ok. This is a little different. Quiet checks the gravitics on her suit out of habit at feeling the weightlessness. Yet they're not active. That makes this better than different!

She revels a bit, absorbing some of Stevens' prior glee. Her faceplate gets pressed to the viewport of the awesome and very unusual view. You think you've seen it all... and then this happens. When the shuttle sets down, her boots clank heavily to the deckplates. and she looks momentarily sheepishly towards Stevens. To recover, she immediately turns to retrieve her gear.

Stevens hops out of his seat, all smiles. Quiet's faceplate hides all of the sheepishness, but the shoulders give it away a little. Stevens smiles even bigger. "Welcome aboard the Intergalactic Space Station! Also, this was my first solo flight, so thank you for your patience."

Stevens suddenly looks stricken. "Oh, shick!" He whirls about and reactivates the comms. The comms light up as his captain is swearing at him like a sailor. Funny, considering they're probably air force.

Quiet has her hardcase, now. Her faceplate also hides her surprise at his admission... quickly followed by a wince at the CO yelling. As much as she enjoyed the trip, there's so much more to explore... and it isn't her CO yelling. She snaps off a brisk salute before stepping out of the open hatch.

The shuttle bay has stacks of crates and tools off to the sides of the landing pads. Straight ahead is a large armored door that slides up. A hispanic woman with her hair tied back and a black cap on her head walks in with a tablet tucked under her arm. She's fit looking. More on the tone and muscular side with a bit of curves. She's wearing a mechanics jumpsuit, peeled down to the waist with a heather gray t-shirt underneath, plus a pair of workboots and work gloves. She's got a sheen of sweet on her skin.

"Ah...you must be our security officer," the woman smiles tiredly to Quiet. "I'm Alicea Morales."

Quiet looks over the bay as she walks. She's used to the general scene, but this is on a much larger scale. Even profitable mercenary outfits don't splurge on hurge garages. She offers a nod and an informal two-finger salute to Morales.

"Follow me." Morales is brusk and sounds overworked. She doesn't look like military. More like a construction contractor. In the briefing Quiet got, there's currently only a staff of about two dozen people working on repairs and retrofitting the station, with the aid of a number of machines. There's a few power loaders even parked on the left side of the bay beyond the crates.

"This should be a cozy job for you. It's just the crew here at the moment, trying to get this old heap converted and up to date." As she guides Quiet down a hall, Quiet notices some signage written in some strange alien language. "The fun won't really start until this place is functional. But we needed someone to get to know the station first in the meantime until we hire a full security force."

Quiet follows her new guide. A cozy job is still a job, and cozy means she won't need to worry about mysterious forces, random villains, and possibly heroes alike trying to assault her. Sure, she may grow bored eventually, but for now it's new. She nods and looks over the corridor they pass as she listens.

"Docking Bays 2 and 3 are nominally operational. But stay clear of Bay 1. That's still not fixed. You open a door out to that whole section, you're going to get spaced," Morales grumbles and wipes her brow with the back of her work glove. "Air conditioning's on the fritz in this section. We're working on it. But at least the air scrubbers are working," she huffs. So Stevens lied about his forecast!

Quiet enjoyes the sights, but doesn't treat it wholly as a sightseeing trip. It isn't a vacation. She pulls out her tablet and begins taking notes while also querying the station network for useful information such as floorplans and crew rosters. As for the forecasting? Even the meterologists are lcky to bat .500.

The information is pulled up, since Quiet has security access. Well, some. They didn't give a merc the keys to the kingdom. Just enough to do her job. Mostly to make sure there's a law presence to keep the workers covered should they have issues with each other.

Morales leads Quiet to her quarters, and the doors slide open welcomingly as the room illuminates. It's like a very spacious hotel room with a bed, a seating area with two cozy chairs, a work station, and a bathroom with a shower and sink. "These'll be your quarters. Feel free to unpack, get settled. Mess hall's on C Deck when you want grub. Tomorrow the foreman will get you fully briefed. Any questions?"

The information is pulled up, since Quiet has security access. Well, some. They didn't give a merc the keys to the kingdom. Just enough to do her job. Mostly to make sure there's a law presence to keep the workers covered should they have issues with each other.

Morales leads Quiet to her quarters, and the doors slide open welcomingly as the room illuminates. It's like a very spacious hotel room with a bed, a seating area with two cozy chairs, a work station, and a bathroom with a shower and sink. "These'll be your quarters. Feel free to unpack, get settled. Mess hall's on C Deck when you want grub. Tomorrow the foreman will get you fully briefed. Any questions?"

Quiet takes a quick survey of the room that looks far more lavish than her small rental home. She turns to Morales, considers, then shakes her helm. Her notes are saved and the screen blanked for a quick final note. She flips the tablet around to share the note with her escort.

Nothing further, thank you. I'll inspect the grub later.

Morales just nods and whirls about, powerwalking back to her task. The door shuts behind her.

Once Morales departs, Quiet taps the lock on the door before moving to a seat. She unseals and removes her helm, setting it on the desk before returning her attention to her tablet. Notes and the staion layout are linked, with each note tagged to the relevant location. She takes a quick skim of the next days' work rotations to try and familiarie herself with the shifts. With every job comes necessary recon and homework. Moreso with this one.

The next two days are calm and easy. Quiet gets the first day to settle in and relax. The second day is a further tour of the working facilities. The foreman explains that the space station is actually a decomissioned starport from the Andromeda Galaxy. Apparently some ambassador planetside pulled some strings and got it towed to Earth for use as an intergalactic space station. But the starport wasn't built for human biology.

The workers are in the process of converting the starport for human inhabitance, and to repair old damage, replace the systems with United Earth equipment, and deal with a few odd conversions of a ship whose controls were designed by a race with four arms. Essentially, it's being overhauled.

And then, on the third day, the whole space station shudders while everyone's in the mess hall.

And then...a MASSIVE shudder accompanies the sound of an explosion that rivals a transformer blowing.

Quiet gets a bit of extra-terrestrial education. Who knew that Andromedan stations could be hand-me-downs? Her inspections of the chow prove it's rather good; nothing like the toothpaste she half-expected.

It was good until the explosion and shudder, that is. She immediately looks around, her not yet touched tray clattering back to the counter. Is it semi-normal? She doesn't know every nut and bolt, but she's pretty sure it isn't. There's a momentary pause as she awaits warnings, klaxons, and/or yelling.

Several startled engineers and workers let out yells of surprise and terror. Some of the more novice people dive under the tables as if in an earthquake drill.

The lights suddenly go out. It's pitch dark in the mess hall and there's more screams before a backup power source kicks off and the emergency lights come up.

The automated alert system starts announcing something...but it's still in some synthetically announced alien language. "Grakush e kimr zei tet kommel. Troshil. Troshil. Grakush e kimr zei tet kommel."

Quiet is turning towards the nearest wall when the lights go out. She pauses, waits. When the emergency lighting kicks back on, she moves fora panel to hit the... nevermind. She assumed it would be easier to trigger an alarm than try to yell at everyone. Time for plan C. She taps the pad on her right forearm and activates the holographics. A large flashing red sign illuminates with informative text.

REPORT TO DUTY STATIONS. OFF-DUTY TO QUARTERS. DAMAGE REPORTS TO CONTROL

No one seems to understand what the alien computer is trying to alert them to. Some people peek up from under the tables as the station rumbles and shudders some more. Soon, people start scrambling to comply.

Morales and Stevens come running. "What the frak was that!?" Stevens hollars. "Are we under attack?!"

Morales says, "Attacked? Who the hell would attack us out here? Probably a structural failure. We need to get people suited up in case there's a hull breach!"

While the pair spectulate, the stop by Quiet to assist.

Quiet nods to Morales. While her own instincts are biased to attack, the engineer makes perfect sense. Her holo shrinks to something for the three of them as Quiet types one-handed but rapidly.

GET EVERYONE SUITED UP. NON-ESSENTIAL TO QUARTERS. MORALES, GET DAMAGE CONTROL TEAMS OUT AND REPORT ASAP. I'LL BE IN CONTROL.

STEVENS, GET YOUR SHUTTLE CHECKED AND PREPPED.