Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Mystery Planet - Columbia Landing Site

Posted by Vice Admiral CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Mystery Planet - Columbia Landing Site
[snip]

Lowering their weapons both slowly held up their hands, then the man spoke up, “..I am United States Air Force Colonel Rick Husband! Commander of STS-107 mission and the orbital Columbia you are around there. Next to me is 1st Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, are.....are you humans?” He said.

GM CockRoach

El let out a breath and whispered, “Impossible people,” even as Aelef retreated a step and showed her his scanner that had photos of the crew up. A lot more weathered and the dress was different, and the hair but .. impossible.

Ari came around the corner as the Colonel introduced them. Laying a hand on the Sergeant’s shoulder, she stepped just ahead of him. “I’m Captain Arialla Bovar of the Bonaventure.” She smiled and nodded. “And yes, we’re human. We caught your signal and came to investigate.”

”..I can’t believe it!” Said the Indian native Kalpana, “..we knew setting up that signal was a shot in the dark all those years ago, we had no idea where we landed here on this planet. To be honest we had long since given up any hope of ever someone human or not hearing it..” She said.

El could probably figure given the limited devices they had to work with that likely the radio signal they had picked up given it was so primitive had not had much cohesion after a few light years, much less reception to be picked up. So even if some known alien ship had passed by the system and weren’t looking for something they probably got ignored.

Back then the thought was that such waves would travel forever into space, that the first transmissions of television would carry on indefinitely. That was likely the thought with these people too. El recalled from studies that that belief was shredded once they had warp travel and that was simply not true. Solar radiation, ion storms and the like shredded them. Even the more advanced transmissions from the Terra Nova colony took years and was poor in quality. No, this signal would not have gone that far before it was just a mess. The Bonnie was lucky to pick it up and even then knowing the general frequencies that Earth used. Or whatever Earth these impossible people came from.

She didn’t see any harm in giving them the truth. Though exact details could wait for a little while. “We have medical staff. Are any of you hurt?”

Ari CO

This time Rick Husband spoke, “..No, nothing recent. We’ve had some injuries here and there over the long years but thankfully nothing that has been life threatening. The worse was about 30 or so years back, when William got attacked by a group of Spikers when he was out hunting..” he said.

Spikers. Curious. She glanced around as though these creatures would rampage through the clearing. 150 years of living in the rough like this and no serious injury? More impossibility. She frowned, though whether that was from the mention of the ‘Spikers’ or her thoughts that was unknown.

El watched the Captain move up. Where were the others then? she wondered. The scans, the people, all were pointing toward this being the crew, but it was impossible! El was stuck on this, she knew, and part of her was telling her that she needed to be broader of mind with this. Being out in space afforded exposure to impossible things, like their last mission of meeting descendants of future crews. But this was past crews of an old shuttle where they had evidence of it being destroyed and all hands lost. Hurt? she thought. At pushing 200 they looked pretty good to her. How did they live that long? Another thought came to her. Could she?

El, Eng

Naomi tensed when two strangers approached the group. Her eyes lifted to observe them, their weapons ready. She couldn’t stop her heart from leaping up into her throat at the notion KIA during the mission. Relieving her of any obligation to reply, the CO spoke.

As the conversation continued, the scientist removed herself from Black’s side. He was in good hands right now and she would only get in the way.

-ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci

Blackwell took a step forward, holding his medical scanner at the ready, How could such historic figures still be alive after all this time. He only had a general impression of who they were as the refresher for this mission and some tidbits from his childhoods studies. He waited for the strangers to answer.

Dr. NE Blackwell

As Blackwell approached the pair, both looked curiously at the hand scanner as it beeped, bopped and hummed its way through a scan process. The scanner showed to Blackwell both were indeed human down to their genetic structure, no obviously abnormalities stood out that they could see. Both were perhaps a bit low in certain nutrients but overall were in surprisingly good shape and health given the circumstances, and the fact they had all been here for almost 150 years, plus their normal ages before 2003’s loss. The scans confirmed both in front of them were also an exact match for Rick being 45 years of age that he was in 2003 and now, in turn Kalpana was an exact match for her age in 2003 of 40! Somehow neither of these two, and presumably the rest of the surviving crew had aged a year since 2003!

Seeing the scanner and the rest seeing likely surprised in some form or another at them being alive, Rick spoke again rubbing the back of his head a bit, “..I guess you’re all surprised as we are to see you all? From your stance and looks you weren’t out here looking for us, but just stumbled here right?” he asked.

Once someone would given a confirmation he nodded again, “..Figures, well you’re probably wondering how we’re all still alive and not aged what seems a day since we got here? Well I wish I could tell you how that is, the frank answer is we don’t know. Our flight surgeon Laurel tried to make sense of it after we got here for some time, but given what little we had to work with its all theories and guess work. Finally, we just accepted it and gave up to focus on other things..” he said.

Kalpana gave a wry chuckle, “..We have postulated everything from divine intervention, to the water here being a fountain of eternal life, to aliens, to pretty much anything you can think of I guess..” she added.

”..Anyhow if you want we can take you to what passes for our humble home here, its about a mile or so back through the woods here near a natural cave system..” Rick offered. “..The others are either out hunting, smoking previous catches, or just doing some idle work back home, either way they’ll all be thrilled at this turn of events, when we heard your ship there..” he said gesturing to their nearby shuttlepod, coming roaring in from the sky to say we were surprised was to put it lightly..” he said.

GM CockRoach

El couldn’t hold her question in any further. “How did you get here?” Her tone had a tint of the incredulous, though refrained from her next statement of ‘it’s impossible!’.

• El, Eng

OOC: Pasting in the split!

Naomi was curious as she listened to the group’s conversation. She frowned at the data frowned and immediately considered the reasons for this. There wasn’t many even with the ever growing lifespan of humans over the eons. This sparked her curiosity enough to speak up.

“How of you are there?” The question was expected from an someone with a thirst for knowledge.

-ENS Naomi D. Locke, Sci

The obvious answer would be seven, shy of children. Two women. Five guys at last from the bit that she had caught. A hundred fifty years. How did ‘that’ work? No quarrels. The implication in what this ‘Rick’ said was that the others were back there. The seven. No children? Why was it these two who came? After a century and a half there would be the potential of many children. But if they didn’t age, what of them? Were there any? More impossible things. El glanced up at the surrounding buzzing insects and thought of the animals, these ‘spikers’. Were they similarly affected in some way? Would they be? Pros. Cons.

El was excited about being on this now second new world, breathing new air, seeing new .. critters. She glanced back to the shuttle. She and Aelef had been brought down to work, what, engineering things? That won’t fly again. Even if they manage to work in her machine shop for parts. There was no runway. They would need to put the shuttle on the Bonnie and launch her from that. But she was too far gone in age and damages. She glanced back to the two. And a century and a half away from any flight training. What use would ‘they’ be here, her and Aelef, at this point? Still, being here was exciting - but for the impossibility of it all. How was this possible?
- El, Eng

Ari listened to the couple and shook her head. “We sincerely appreciate the offer of refreshment, but it’s probably better if we didn’t. At least until we figure out a few things.” She laughed lightly to keep the conversation easy.

Just then, something dawned on her. “I know this seems like a silly question, but humor me, please.” She paused and took a deep breath before continuing. “Just how long have you guys been here? I apologize for all the questions, but I hope you understand our curiosity.” She smiled again hoping she didn’t sound pushy.

She had asked because when one of them had asked how many of their group there were, it occurred to her that in over a century, there should have been a flock of folks. Perhaps there were and they just hadn’t seen them, yet. But if there wasn’t… Then time was the next curiosity factor. If they felt it had only been a few years or a decade, even, then they had a bigger problem. And a bigger one, beyond that, was … If their longevity was tied to the planet… what would happen if they left its surface?

Ari
CO