Mission 01: Recovery [Briefing]

[cityship]

The Meeting is interrupted.

There is a resounding mental alarum that sounds through the ship. Nearly "deafening." Lights flash from places for extra emphasis, making it impossible to ignore.

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

They can hear it through the meeting bubble and Jaime drops it.

It's entirely likely that she won't stop repeating the announcement until, well, everyone reports to Obs Deck. The mouth in the huge statue opens, revealing a screen. On it, the dossier for the mission flickers into display, understandable to every person there. Smaller copies of the dossier appear in holographic form in front of everyone.

The planet's stats, right next to a rotating picture of it, marled blue and green, are as follows:

Planet Designation: Earth-534A342Z
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: No.
Water: 82% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Similar to Earth's Mediterranean climates/desert climates in some areas. [Click here for cultural equivalents for non-Earth cultures.]
Landscape: Varied. Lightning storms plague the plains and mountain plateaus. Tectonic upheaveal.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 28% oxygen, 62% nitrogen, 5% xenon, 5% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.

Air Pressure: 14.543 pounds per square inch.
Sky: Blue with orangeish-gold clouds (clouds ride rather low in the sky due to gravity being stronger and therefore reflect the colors on the surfaces of the plateaus.
Sun: A class M5V, a red dwarf star.

Warnings: Wildlife and plant-life can be hazardous.

Mission: Track escape pod vessels with the scanners provided. Manually activate recovery processes. Return to Main Planet Pod.

--

Following that, there is a table displaying the escape pods--they looked like little bugs or maybe giant beans. Something between plant and insect.

||Attention, podmates. Attention.||

Apparently Stacy wants their attention.

||It is critical that you pay attention at this time.||

Comments

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief whips around sharply, reflexively falling into a ready-stance with his rifle at hand. It almost seems to have appeared there, he moved so quick.

Stacy. Something's going on, he's instantly keyed up and wary. The Spartan's eyes rake down the dossier in a matter of seconds.

"Looks like we have orders," he says grimly.

[sonof-mogh.livejournal.com]

Worf is right next to the Chief, half-crouched with his phaser in one hand.

"It expects us to preform tasks for it?"

[pie-bitches.livejournal.com]

"Oh, fantastic," Dean says loudly, trying to be heard over the alarm. "Because following orders from a giant breathing ship is exactly how I wanted to start my day."

Detailed Briefing

[cityship]

||Full crew is now gathered for briefing. Briefing will commence.||

Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[cityship]

||Earth-534A342Z is a dimensional variant of Earth. It's sun, Sol, however, is a red dwarf star. For this reason, the Kryptonians have been excluded from the mission.||

||The following individuals have been selected for this mission:

Aizawa, Kousaku
Aran, Samus
Bennet, Cybil
Bishop, Elle
Bishop, Katherine
Blitzwing
Brainiac 5 -- Robotic Variant
Bricker, Leela
Chaucer, Geoffrey
Cranston, William
Drake, Timothy
Drood, Edward
Elika
Fangor, Tobias
Frye, Kaywinnit Lee
Gentry, Allen
Grayson, Richard
Grey, Jean
Guzman, Paco
Harkness, Jack
Hecatonchires, Briareos
Javert
Kennedy, Leon
Lang, Cassandra
Master Chief
McCoy, Leonard
McNinja, Dark Smoke Puncher
McNinja, Dr.
Mcginnis, Terry
MiddleMan, The
One-Leaf-Ear
Picard, Jean-Luc
Plays-in-Traffic
Prince, The
Reynolds, Malcolm
Sandsmark, Cassandra
Song, River
Soundwave
Spock
Tucker, Cale
Wednesday, Mr.
Watson, Wendy
Winchester, Dean
Worf, son of Mogh

All other individuals will receive the briefing, lest they enter the mission as replacements, but after the completion of the briefing, will leave Obs Deck or be removed.||

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[cutintomyheart.livejournal.com]

Chris clears his throat a little, before asking, weakly—

"Stacy, um, I have a question, what's the biosphere like? Are people going to have to worry about diseases? If the sun's a red dwarf, that would seem like native life'd have had a very long time to evolve..." It's already struck him that something bizarre is going on on the ship, or Geoff would have died of about a thousand different modern-day household plagues by now...

He looks around at the others, particularly the folks picked to go on the mission, with a 'good question right???' expression.

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainiac 5 Robotic Variant nods and shoots a superior look at his counterpart.

"It would appear that the ship has made an accurate decision in this instance. My skills would be more suited to this mission, I believe."

Unfortunately that means he can't spend time in the labs going through other Brainy's stuff working on important projects, but he supposes that will happen in due time.

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[gangstageek.livejournal.com]

"Dude, why you gotta reveal a brother's name like that?" Dark Smoke Puncher muttered from his hiding place among as a piece of furniture. It wasn't HARD hiding from people he suspected were possibly ninjas. Then again, he just spoke aloud and even quiet, that was a mistake.

Well, he had a mission. When he had to move, he'd move. Until then, he'd wait and see if anyone noticed the talking piece of furniture.

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[tobiasf.livejournal.com]

Tobias hears his name but is surprised he doesn't hear Ax's. He knows he can handle himself, but he's much more comfortable when working with the others. Not that any of them are here at this moment. He flies to the obs deck to await the briefing.

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[old-country-doc.livejournal.com]

Bones looked over at Billy. "Hope you got that field equipment finished." He then looked at Stacy. "I need to get medical equipment from Sickb...MedLab before we depart, do we have time for that?"

He then looked at the remainder of the room. "Besides Jean and myself, who has medical training." He hadn't had a chance yet to assemble a straightforward medical team.
(Reply to this)

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Roster

[gogopowersuit.livejournal.com]

Samus was more inclined to pay attention when she heard her name being called. The planet itself didn't sound too dangerous. The semi-sentient life bit gave her reason to be wary.

"Will we provided with arms?"

Detailed Briefing - Mission Objective

[cityship]

||Six escape pods crashlanded on the planet's surface. Damage to the ships has rendered them unable to engage in automated recovery processes. The crew will split into teams and manually activate recovery processes. If the ships are functional, they will fly back to me of their own volition. If not, they will auto-destruct to prevent their technology from falling in enemy hands. After recovery processes are activated, crew is to return back to the deployment pod to return to the ship proper.||

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Objective

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"And what if I say 'no'?" Cale asked. Being trapped on this flying stomach was one thing and, so far, he had kept his mouth shut about it--when compared to most people--but having the very thing that abducted him expecting him to perform tasks for her just because she said so was completely different.

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Objective

[governmentninja]

"What 'enemy hands' are you talking about?"

Detailed Briefing - Materials

[cityship]

||For the mission, tracking devices, to track the locations of the escape pods, will be provided. Power suits will be provided and unlocked, though they will be returned--by force, if necessary--upon the completion of the mission. A Medkit for each recovery team will be provided.||

Re: Detailed Briefing - Materials

[prettycoolguy]

If the Chief were much for outwardly expressing his emotions, he'd punch the air in triumph. Well, not a huge triumph. He still has to give his suit back at the end, but at least this confirms it's on the boat.

He'll be watching carefully for anything that might give him a hint as to what Stacy's done with it, too.

"Stacy: Have you in any way modified my armor?" he asks her seriously. This is a big concern. He probably won't trust whatever she says anyway, but he'll ask.

[morphitudinous]

"How do these devices operate?" First things first---Billy wants to make sure they're not going to run into any equipment failures on the run. Hostile environments, he's found, don't tend to lend themselves to proper experimentation.

Billy's eyebrow quirks a little at that last item. So Stacy's hoarding power suits and 'loaning them out' at her discretion. He doesn't particularly like that, but...wait, does that include...?

"Power suits? Are these suits of your own fashioning customized for the planet's environment, or items that originally belonged to crew members?" Like little silver belt buckles that he'd have some difficulty carrying due to no longer having a belt, for instance? Sound familiar?

End Briefing - Separation and Deployment

[cityship]

||Mission briefing complete.||

Tentacles sweep through the room and grab all of the people not on the machine, suddenly, pulling through through the door, out of Obs Deck.

Tentacles grab the people on the mission and refused to let them go leave. The doors seal, those with power suits have said suits get pulled out from nowhere, have morphers handed to them, and the tentacles start to dress them in them, even if the dampening field won't let them activate yet. Terry, Chief, Samus, and Billy find themselves approaching something close to normalcy again.

||Approaching the target planet.|| Stacy's voice says on the comm and the ship shudders as it slows and the swirling light of space travel dwindles down to the simple black of the void, of stars streaking past.

In the distance, a star gets brighter and brighter, larger and larger as they approach, a great red dwarf, burning with a orange-red glow, and a speck near it grows until they can make out little swirls of color on its surface, like it's a marble floating around in nothing.

That marble starts to fill their view, growing until they can see the planet clearly below them, as the ship's orbit (which is crooked and slightly cock-eyed over what is likely the northern hemisphere of the planet) is established.

The atmosphere is full of thin white clouds, and darker ones in other places, crackling with electricity. The land below varies in color, from stark white at the very tips of the poles, like ice, to sandy tans and desert reds, and vibrant greens, to the blue-blacks of the oceans.

Re: End Briefing - Separation and Deployment

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

"Well, damn."

Brief Bickering Argument

[daaayum.livejournal.com]

While the subject moves in and the ships rotates closer to the planet, Leela hisses to Cale,

Re: Brief Bickering Argument

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"What's yours?" he counters, moving away from the group and settling down in a corner on one of the fleshy couches.

Detachment Procedures

[cityship]

Stacy's voice intones:

||Initiating Detachment procedures.||

There was a tremendous shudder and the artificial gravity cut out. It felt as if the entire Obs Deck was drifting.

That was because that's exactly what it was doing. As it slowly rotated through space they could most likely see the rest of the ship through the windows, and long umbilical cord that connected Obs Deck to it.

At first, it seemed like there was a sheer wall there, but as Obs Deck pulled away, they could see that it was in fact the ship.

And it was huge.

A long, shriveled thing, it was like a diseased organ, made of what looked like mottled, wrinkled flesh, gray in some places, green-gray in others, and black most of all. Bulbous pods, glowing faintly in the void, were clustered along the surface of it, like eggshells illuminated from the inside.

Still, its eerie appearance was dwarfed by the sheer size of it. It was bigger than a city--to those that had traveled through space already, it was easy to see that it was bigger than the average-sized moon.

Re: Detachment Procedures

[ihatefire.livejournal.com]

It just slips out. She can't help it.

"Jesus #$%&ing Christ!"

That's it. That's Stacy.

She's huge. liek xbox

Entering Atmosphere

[cityship]

||Preparing to enter atmosphere.||

They get a glimpse of a massive...cord, shielded with energy, still connecting them to the ship proper, like an umbilical cord. Then, over the windows shielding lowers down and up, meeting in the middle, like eyelids, and sealed and all of a sudden, there is a sudden bumping, then a lurching, and then bumping again, like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond. It shakes them only slightly from the zero-grav, but they do feel it.

||Please keep in mind you will be experiencing some turbulence|| Stacy says politely.

There is lurching again, and then...the sudden feeling that they are plummeting to the earth at several thousand miles per hour--while still floating into the air. It's almost like they were being tugged slightly at both ends, and the air in Obs Deck starts to heat up.

||Entering atmosphere|| Stacy's voice cheerfully came in their heads, unaffected by the roaring of the friction trying to burn away at the hull.

Re: Entering Atmosphere

[crazychanger.livejournal.com]

Blitzwing is giggling insanely (as usual). He doesn't even seem to mind the zero-g and the sudden turbulence.
Then again, he's probably felt worse.
In any case, he seems to be enjoying himself.