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

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Objective

[cityship]

||You will perform the requested duties on the mission.||

Re: Detailed Briefing - Mission Objective

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Says who?" he counters. He's being defiant. Like a pain in the ass teenager. Or maybe he's just trying to show off.

[cityship]

||You will perform the requested duties on the mission.|| Stacy repeats.

She goes on:

||Or face Punishment.||

[governmentninja]

So she did have a leash on them. That certainly made a few thing make some level of sense.

"Can you be more specific?"

[cityship]

||You will perform the requested duties on the mission. Refusal will result in Punishment.||

Real clear, Stacy.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"That's not much of a request," Cale commented.

[cityship]

||You have the option of Refusal.|| Stacy points out.

Hey, Cale, a choice is a choice.

||It results in Punishment.||

Even if you don't like the result of one of the choices.

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

Wednesday gives Cale a "go along with it, I'm sure we'll get the chance to tapdance on her brain later" look.

[staturity]

"What about the people in the escape pods?"

[cityship]

||Their status is classified.||

[supertshirt.livejournal.com]

"What if we want to go on the mission, even if we're not on the roster?" Kon asks, somewhat defiant, briefly eyeing Cassie.

She can take care of herself. Even powerless.

But he'd rather be powerless right beside her than wait up here, not knowing what's going on.

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

She shakes her head.

It's reversed, for her; she'd rather have him on the ship, which is supposedly safe, as far as she knows, at least when compared to whatever is waiting for them on shore. If Stacy needs that many people, there's obviously something more dangerous than a couple of plants.

"You should stay, Kon."

[supertshirt.livejournal.com]

"Cass, you don't have your powers. If she thinks it's fine for people to go without powers, I should be able to go too, right?"

He looks back up to the ceiling. "I can trade with somebody then."

Seriously, you are not sending his powerless girlfriend and mentioning "enemy hands," and "hazardous" plants and wild-life, without also sending him. So what if he'd be powerless? She already is. They'd just...match. Whatever. They can watch each other's backs. Yeah, Tim's going and he knows Tim and Cassie are both kickass and can watch each other's backs, but that's even more of a reason to want to go. Both of them are going--he wants to be there.

[cityship]

||Mission selections are final.||

[supertshirt.livejournal.com]

"I'd like to see you try and stop me--"

[cityship]

The tentacles suddenly appear from the projectors, grab Kon and slam him into the wall in a sudden--and surprising--motion.

Hard. Like a rag doll, hard. Harder than she does when breaking up fights.

[supertshirt.livejournal.com]

There's a whoof as the wind is knocked out of him, and the thud sound of his head cracking against one of the harder surfaces of the ship's walls is not pleasant. Kind of like an overripe melon hitting something hard enough to nearly go splat.

"Nnnnf!"

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

Cassie can't react fast enough. She doesn't have those powers at her disposal. The most she can do for the first two seconds is stare, stunned, and the most she can do in the next few is start to move in the right direction.

It does nothing, of course, and in the end she can just race in the direction Kon's been thrown.

"Kon!"

[mrsarcastic003]

Tim tears off after Cassie to go find Kon. Of all the stupid, pig-headed... He knows better than to argue with the tentacle-beast in whom they live.

When they find him, Tim drops next to him, and starts to carefully check him out for signs of head trauma.

"Idiot," he mutters. "You're supposed to stay alive long enough for us to figure out a way to save you."

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

Brainiac 5's been watching the exchange carefully, clearly thinking about something, and now finally he speaks.

"If the ships are non-functional, they are going to auto-destruct in order to protect their technological secrets, correct? In that case, what would happen to those inside the escape pods? Normally I would assume that we would be permitted to evacuate them first, however," he glances over at Kon for a moment, "in light of recent events, I'd appreciate some clarification on the matter."

[cityship]

||Condition of the crews are irrelevant. No sentient lifesigns are detected on the planet.||

Get it, guys? They're dead.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"I see. But if we're to retrieve the working escape pods, then what is going to happen to the... remains?"

Normally he wouldn't be concerned about this as much but he knows it can be a sensitive subject with others.

[cityship]

||Irrelevant.||

There are no remains.

[brainy-bot.livejournal.com]

"No survivors and no remains? Then what happened?"

Not that he actually expects much of an answer, considering Stacy's past usefulness with direct questions, but there's always the possibility that his assumption will be wrong or that something said will lead to gathering more information about what is really going on.

[cityship]

||Information classified.||