Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Launch Bay - Landing Preperations
[snip]

”..True!” The fourth NE by the launch control room said, “..but then again if we got recorded proof on Earth back in 2003 of recovering the shuttle and the bodies and its complete break up, then how do we explain the intact shuttle on the planet and signs of survivors that built some jury rigged water wheel to power the shuttle’s radio every hour on the hour to transmit?..” he added

“Intact?” El remarked. She didn’t have the history that they had. The ‘shuttles’ were a blip in her classes at the Academy. Home schooled, it had been even more of a fly by. They were a steppingstone between the old rockets with Apollo and the smaller, more versatile merchant solutions that came later. “The landing field for one of those is huge. You can’t just land one on a farmer’s field. One of the pilots said it was like trying to pilot a brick. If they tried to land that on anything but a runway that thing would be in pieces. Wait, a water wheel?”

”..Well maybe not 100% intact, but its main structure and shape is Lisa said on scans, there are debris but its quite minor, not a total break up of the shuttle like the records of 2003 say..” he said.

”..Wow one of those old things? My great grandfather was a historian of old Earth space flight, from pictures he showed me and the track record they all had in failures its a wonder we even got into space back then as we did! Still if I recall right that shuttle was lost with all hands in 2003 and its remains recovered shortly there after! So how did it wind up mostly intact on this planet with the crew??” the first proposed after securing emergency provisions in the pod.

GM CockRoach

“A hundred years from now they will be looking at our ship and saying the same thing,” El said under her breath, annoyed at them looking at their history that way. Everything built on another. She scratched at the back of her neck. Aelf was right. You can’t have two things of the same, and not this far out. “Unless it’s not from our universe,” El said, musing. “Some kind of one parallel to ours.” She shrugged. “It was big in science fiction for a while.” And no real fact to prove it. Unless this was it. A tingle went through her. But from the sounds of it it could as easily be old ruins. Rumors seemed rampant.

”..Well yeah obviously! But that’s half the fun of joking about older tech if you ask me..” the first NE said

“Who is Copperfield?” El asked.

“Old magician of the 20th Century. He was one of the first to do big scale tricks. Most just did little things like escape tricks or stage tricks. He made buildings disappear, walked through walls.” Evidently Aelef was into that as El could see him getting and sounding more excited which meant his accent became thicker, which was about as far off and alien as the ‘Bas’ dialect that she had learned, that mix of languages that was common around the Basilisk Strait amid the great floating cities that were on either side of that Strait. They had names for themselves, but the vernacular translated them to simply Flotsam and Jetsam.

“Could be that too,” El said. Any theory at the moment was equally sound, and, as equally ridiculous.

El, Eng with Aelf

While El and others were finishing storing things, the fourth NE by the launch control room poked his head out of the door. “..Hey can someone check the aft port thruster sensor? Diagnostics there just finished up for a third time and are giving me three different results of status, might be a faulty sensor but might not..” he said.

GM CockRoach

“We’ll need an engineer for that,” El said. “Where will we find one here?” Her mind went through the make up of the pod. The sensor was linked to the status display at the helm which was linked through the thruster array itself, so it could be the helm sensor or the ‘governing’ sensor at the thruster itself that sent out the signal. That would take two of them to confirm. One at the helm and the other at the thruster to confirm command and test and output. “I’ll take the helm and run a thruster test. Aelef, get to the thruster panel and open it up, hook directly into the port thruster to bypass the sensor and we’ll first check if it’s a thruster issue.”

El squeezed about the other NE loading material and fit handily into the pilot’s seat. It was a nice fit with her frame. Anyone else, she thought, would be rather squished. Bringing up thruster controls she set it for a low powered test – just enough to see the thrust happening. She called back. “Test level. Zero Point Five. Ready when you are Aelef!”

“Just hooking up here,” he called back. “There, I have a reading. Initiate test.”

“Engaging .. NOW!” she called out, hitting the switch. She could feel the low rumble of the thruster, not enough to move the ship anywhere or really do anything, but inside it sounded louder than it would otherwise. She looked at her digital display. “What do you read?” she called, checking her display to see if it matched.

El, Eng

The thrum of the engine was felt and heard, the result was that Aelef’s diagnostic came back in the green, the helm also showed good, so that meant the thruster feed sensor was bad in some way.

GM CockRoach

(((Apparently I’m a moron lost on my own ship lol)))
Ari came back in with an armload of old clothes just a the shuttle wound down. “I’m counting that that was a good test and about a bad one?”

“Ok, everyone change. No uniforms. I’m sure we’ll get to the we’re not from around here and you’re not either at some point. But no need to make it the first topic of conversation.” She set the clothes pile on a nearby crate. There would be casual clothes for everyone.

“Once security and the others are here, we’ll go. Make sure everything’s secure. We’re not sure what crashed them. So let’s be prepared for anything, including a rough entry.” She nodded to them and went to check on the other departments from the console by the door, leaving them to continue their conversation.

Ari
CO