Chapter Two - And Birds Are Still…
June 3, 2338
Wreck of the Le Bout Du Monde
Commander Sloan Decker - ULN Civil Military Fleet
"This is Sloan, doors cut, boarding now."
Decker speaks into the mic of his E.V.A. Suit, relaying information over a visual feed to the fully active command crew of the Evelyn's Vain. He had offered to be the one to retrieve the black box, being one of the only ones with extra atmospheric experience outside of the survival training all U.L.N. personnel are required to receive, he probably would have been picked anyways he reckoned.
Turning on the helmet-mounted light, he peers into the now-cut-open bay of the Le Bout Du Monde's airlock, its white light reflecting off the reflective material of numerous suit patching kits and first aid kits that line the walls. Grabbing onto one of the outcroppings of metal, he pulls himself inside, knowing that the lack of gravity inside would keep his momentum until he reached the interior door leading into the rest of the ship.
Decker had brought an assortment of tools- all recommended to him by the engineering staff, to allow him easier access throughout the dead ship. Most important was the small handheld microgenerator, designed to open doors without power. It being, not being not much bigger than a handheld phone, sported a long cable with an aggressive prong meant to force its way into the wirings of control panels and then give just enough power to open most interior ship doors ( the exterior ones needing more power than the device could provide to open then the device could provide) and leave them open.
Grabbing said device Decker quickly flipped open the maintenance panel of the door and jammed the wire in; a small ui appeared on the phone-sized generator, followed by a bright green light on the interior airlock door before swiftly opening and the device going dark.
Pulling his way further in, he stops and looks around the spacious interior that narrows into numerous hallways. Benches line the walls alongside a handful of floating, frozen bodies, having long since died of exposure. Having expected this Decker doesn't show much reaction
"Command, I see three hallways. Which way do I go?" Decker asks, shining his light down on each one individually to see if he can find any directions painted on the wall; there are none.
"Decker, this is Command; proceed through the one parallel to the airlock, then hang a right up the elevator shaft that should lead you directly to the bridge." The recognizable voice of Captain Milton relays throughout Decker's headset.
"Aff," Decker responds shorthand and continues further in.
Decker was thankful that they had found such a short path to the black box; having studied the blueprints of the colossal ship, the staff had all theorized that the course Decker was currently on would be the quickest and safest route toward the objective, mostly Decker was thankful that he wouldn't have to map the ship which would've taken weeks given the size of her.
Decker glances around as he floats down the hallway giving the occasional burst of his thrusters to dodge debris, noting the rooms, a janitorial closet, a med-bay, a canteen, all very typical rooms amongst a ship. Among the debris out the corner of his eye is a half-hanging ceiling light dully blinking blue. He stops suddenly as he focuses back on the hallway with a rapid burst of his reverse thruster.
Decker quickly keys his mic, "Command, are you seeing this? I thought the ship didn't have any power?"
"Decker, this is Command; wait one, we are trying to figure out the source." Milton's voice quickly responds amidst the audible chatter of the crew on deck.
The light stops blinking suddenly, then just as soon, another blue light blinks further down the hallway, then another, and then another. It turns down the hallway and then repeats. Decker's heart rate rises sharply, and his breathing grows a bit heavy, his brain jumping to random conclusions of danger amidst the confusion of the current situation. Why are the lights blue? Why does it look like the ship is talking to him? Am I going to end up like one of the crew?
Before he can panic more, Milton's voice rings over the comms having noticed his rising heart rate from one of the monitors aboard their ship. "Decker, do we need to abort the mission?"
In this environment, even a brief moment of panic, like what Decker was going through, could spell the Explorer's death due to the accelerated use of oxygen.
Forcing himself to breathe and reason, Decker calms down and responds after 3 deep breaths, "No sir, I'm fine, sorry sir."
"There's nothing to apologize for, Commander. You are inside a ship of dead souls. A bit of fear is expected; you did well calming yourself down. Just try not to let it happen again, I don't want to sortie a rescue team.' Stopping for a brief moment Milton resumes, "When you are ready, follow the blue lights, it looks like the ai core still has power, and it's not far enough to compromise the mission, I want you to investigate it. We can grab the Black Box on your way back."
Taking another couple of breaths, Decker responds with another "Aff" and progresses down the hallway following the blinking band of lights, only taking a left instead of a right away from the elevator. Now having rationalized the situation, he is able to ignore the growing amount of debris and steadily growing frozen cadavers that formed the crew and never to be colony.
After taking a couple more turns, Decker sees a large door at the end of the lights. It also has a blue light, but it blinks rapidly as if to signal that Milton has reached the finish line. "Proceed through the door Commander; it has power," Milton orders, seeing Decker stop. Thrusting forwards, his hand presses the keypad, and the doors swiftly open, revealing a large circular room that is so faintly lit as if it were by candlelight. There is the body of what appears to be a maintenance technician dangling by his mag boots, still locked to the metal flooring, next to a pile of wiring.
Right in the middle of the room is the large ai core of the ship- a series of metal cubes stacked on top of each other, forming a shielding for the components within. Surrounding that is a railing and a single computer blinking the same blue as the lights outside. Decker slowly floats towards it, then, with a quick hand, presses the computer's power button. Suddenly the ceiling lights flicker off, and the blinking blue light is replaced with the form of the Le Bout Du Monde's ai, albeit fading in and out as it looks at Decker.
With its form glitching in and out on every stutter, it begins to speak, "Greetings, I am Pierre, con-congratulations on finding me-me. It has been 4-41 years since last report, main power is lost-t-t-t-t, Le Bout Du Monde is exposed-sed to vacuum. All crew is lost. H-h-how may I assist-sist you?"
Decker spares a glance at the computer monitor, seeing the numerous error messages filling its screen keys, his mic, and says, "Captain, this ai is pretty fried. I have no idea how it even has power still."
The ai interrupts what would be Milton's response "Crew-ew-member Taylor, knowing the ship-ship was lost, sacrificed himself to re-reroute auxiliary power to my core; I have been reserving it on standby mode until I detected-ted your presence aboard our ship-p."
"How much power do you have left?"
"I-in my current state-state, I should be functional for sev-sev-several minutes."
Milton orders urgently over comms, "Decker, grill that ai for all he's got; it might be more useful than the Blackbox if we can find out the other ships' cords."
Decker thinks of something to ask Pierre before finding one and simply asking "What happened?"
Pierre's form shifts out for a second before flickering back and saying, "An acc-accidental jump p-put us too close to a star during a solar flare event-vent. All ships in the fl-fleet suffered damage, un-unfortunately-ly the U.L.V Lewis and Lewi-Clark w-was destroyed entirely."
"Your not close to any sun, though; you must have escaped the solar flare. Right?"
"C-correct, following q-quick thinking by Admiral Phil-Philips, we had randomly jumped to esc-ape-ape-ape certain destruction, unfortunately-ly we jumped into the middle of this debris field, and as a result-sult were exposed-osed to the vacuum."
"What about your lead ship, the Remnant of Asgard? Did it survive?"
"Un-unknown, it is assumed so as we witnessed it ju-jump aswell; due to our current-current stat-status, we could not continue communications past its jump."
Milton's eyebrow quirks from the inside of his helmet. "Does that mean you have the coordinates of its last jump?"
"Affirmative, I kep-kept a log of all starjumps of the flee-fle-fleet. Would you like to see it?"
Milton nods enthusiastically. "Yes, of course. Can you send it to this computer?"
The ai disappears briefly, then flickers on the computer among all the error messages, "Transferring data." then, after a short moment, "Data transfer comple-" with a blink, all power is gone entirely. Decker can only hope the data was saved on the computer as he unlatches it from its housing to transfer it back to the Evelyn's Vain.
"Was the data transferred, Commander?" Milton asks Decker, who quickly responds as he gently places the computer in a secure container. "I'm not sure, Captain; Pierre lost power right as it finished. It's, uh, anyone's guess, really."
"Acknowledged, Commander; proceed to the black box site and recover that as well, and make it snappy your o2 levels are dipping low."
Sure enough, the Captain was right; Milton looking at the wrist monitor that he had been neglecting up until this point, showed that his oxygen was only at a measly 60 percent, which didn't seem low which it wasn't at the moment, but when factoring how much he would use when he would have to both retrieve the Blackbox and then return to the Evelyn's Vain it wouldn't leave much room for error or above average breathing rhythms.
Keeping calm and focusing on breathing naturally, he proceeded back down the hallways, which were mainly straight, albeit with the couple of turns he had already felt out, and was shortly at the elevator to the Bridge where the black box was located. The elevator being long since out of commission didn't prove too much of a problem; Decker simply stabbed the microgenerator into the elevator's control panel, and the doors slid open. Peering inside the empty shaft, he shines his flashlight up and down, looking for the elevator's location, making sure it wouldn't pose as a blockage on his way up.
Seeing nothing, he pulls himself inside the dark shaft and shoots his thrusters a few times to give himself just enough upward momentum to reach the proper floor and stabs the microgenerator into the control panel.
The door receiving its brief surge of localized power, slides open and reveals the Bridge. It would be a fantastic sight in its heyday with its numerous terminals, but now resembles something akin to a horror movie. More bodies litter the room than Decker has seen throughout the entire exploration of the ship combined, all lazily floating about in blue jumpsuits around the spacious command deck frozen by the lack of atmosphere. He usually would just dodge around the bodies to get to where he wanted to be, but there were just too many this time, and with a hesitant hand, pushes the ones in his way away from him as he begins to explore the totaled Bridge.
The Bridge of the Le Bout Du Monde was a fair bit different from the Evelyn's Vain, not so much because of the different class of ship, which would obviously make a difference in equipment setups, but more the sheer irregularity of how the deck was set up. Instead of being on the same level, with the Helm itself being a little higher, in line with the older style of Command Deck, it was instead segmented into two levels. The Helm sat high up in the middle with a single terminal on top of it. Then two sets of staircases flowing down to the windows reveal a series of more terminals for the rest of the crew and separateing them from the commander of the vessel.
Decker thought it was a very odd design, stopping to take it in amidst the cadavers before moving another one out of the way and continuing towards the vessels Helm, the most likely place for the black box to be. Sure enough, after prying apart the casing of one of the helm computers, the device was plucked out; much more compact than the older designs pre-FTL age, it indeed was a little black box about the size of a ration bar that he quickly shoved in the same secure case he had put the ai core's computer in. At this point, Decker was pretty done with the hulking dead ship, having long since lost its luster about 15 corpses ago, and let the Evelyn's Vain crew know that he secured the blackbox and was returning.
Managing to make it back into the Evelyn's Vain airlock just as the low O2 signal started beeping, a little too close for comfort, but nonetheless, he was glad to be back on familiar grounds. He couldn't help but feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. The vast expanse of space, unforgiving and merciless, had tested his mettle, but he had emerged victorious.
With his heart still pounding in his chest, he couldn't deny the physical toll the E.V.A. mission had taken on him. Hours spent in the confines of the suit, navigating the cold grey innard of the Le Bout Du Monde had caused sweat to bead on his brow. It didn't matter how well-protected or experienced you were; the survival instinct would always make you sweat even in the vacuum of space. The prospect of a refreshing shower beckoned to him, promising a respite from the weight of his recent exploits.
He caught sight of one of the crew members after shedding the cumbersome E.V.A suit that had served as his lifeline and quickly handed off his equipment and objective for safekeeping Navigating the familiar corridors of the Evelyn's Vain, he made his way towards the showers. The rhythmic sound of his footsteps echoed through the metal passageways, a comforting symphony in the aftermath of the Mission.
However, his moment of solitude was interrupted by the now fully active crew of the Evelyn's Vain. Congratulatory words and nods of approval filled the air, a testament to the camaraderie that bound them together. He graciously accepted their praise, acknowledging the shared triumph, but his mind was already set on the soothing cascade of water that awaited him.
Without wasting another moment, he stepped under the gushing shower faucet, feeling the warm water envelop his tired body. The sensation was pure bliss, washing away the sweat and grime that clung to his skin, cleansing him both physically and mentally. As he dipped his head down, rivulets of water streamed down his face, mingling with the remnants of adrenaline and leaving a trail as they swirled around the drain. In that solitary moment, he found himself contemplating what the next day would hold.
The possibilities were vast and unknown, just like the unexplored realms of space that awaited him beyond the Evelyn's Vain. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new missions, and new discoveries.
Shutting the faucet off, he emerged from the shower revitalized and rejuvenated. His steady green eyes now reflecting a renewed sense of purpose, he dried himself off and prepared for the mysteries that awaited him on the next leg of their interstellar journey aboard the Evelyn's Vain.
