Press-Gang

Welcome Rock landing bay, in orbit around New Luna...

Tharsis shimmers into view with a soft flash from his holo-emitters next to his boarding ramp.

Sam Gideon is getting off the red-eye shuttle from Kora, rubbing his eyes he hoists his backpack over his shoulder and is making his way through the crowds towards a cordoned off area around Tharsis. The boarding ramp being guarded by Union Forces marines.

Marina arrives at roughly the same time from the casino's shuttle space, her fleet duffle swung over her shoulders and her uniform almost painfully crip. Her steps lilt and she's humming as she draws near. The humming, naturally, trails off as she looks around to see who else might be here.

Tharsis widens his eyes as he spots the cordon and the guards. "What the..." he says, as he looks from guard to guard. "I've gotta glance at my external sensors once in a while.. where did these guys come from?"

An officer near Tharsis approaches the hologram, and the rough looking Sam, and Marina. He waits to be saluted, Sam automatically does so, he's not been out the Forces that long. "Nice timing," a small smile to Marina and Sam. He glances towards the hologram, "Do we have your permission to board? I apologise for the inconvenience but orders in this matter are being issued a high urgency level. So... things are a little more rushed than usual." Sam nods towards the un-named officer, who ranks as a Commander and appears to belong to intel.

Marina salutes as well, the grin fading only for the duration of the gesture. "Well, dire threats to the known Universe...that'd be us, sir."

"Well.. uh.. I guess so." Tharsis stammers. "Come on in." he says as he shimmers out of sight again.

They move to Tharsis' bridge...

Tharsis's voice echoes from one of the intercom speakers. "I guess I've been drafted." he says. "Is this about that huge rift and all the funny stuff going on? Like the Sivadian talking bunny rabbit man I had on board the other day that had a heart attack and was consumed by my couch?"

The Commander nods, "Spot on Mr Tharsis. Though I would appreciate full access to those records." He doesn't take a seat, but gestures for Sam and Marina to sit down on the couch. "We've already sent two vessels towards the rift. The first mission was inconclusive, the second... we lost her. The Damocles, with all hands." Just facts really to the Commander, though he tries to look like he's sorry. Gideon, "Well if I've been re-activated I want my uniform back. Though I'm not entirely sure what a glorified potato peeler is needed for such a mission."

Marina, who had been glancing around the bridge in appreciation, suddenly eyenarrows towards the seating area and edges away from the couch despite the Commander's invitation (or order?) to sit. "Reall...y. Um. What an unusual couch. Could I just take up communications, then? Pending any neccessary medical emergencies, of course. What with being in a hurry and all, sir."

"Sure, I can bring up the audio/visual records, as well as the historical records I was able to retrieve from talking with him. Turns out the guy was transported here from the past just before his death, therefore the history books had a record of him." Tharsis says, before he hears the mission. "Gulp.. uh.. so we're headed to take a look at the rift?" he asks timidly. "If warships didn't have good luck.. I don't know what chance a broken down freighter like myself is going to have."

"You're more than a broken freighter Mr Tharsis," says the Commander. "You have probably the most advanced sensor's suite I've ever seen, and you're an exploration vessel, you probably have access to intel we don't have. That could help your Captain." The Commander glances at Sam with 'that' expression. "Very good Commander Gideon, the Admiralty will be most surprised to hear. You have been field promoted to the rank of Commander and you are given charge of this mission. The admiralty is well aware of your extra-curricular training, hence your promotion to deal with this crisis. We fully expect you to be able to handle the situation." Commander Gideon sighs and then gives a sharp nod, "Who was the guy transported from the past Mr Tharsis?"

Marina grins in delight at Gideon, and since there was no argument, slides into one of the secondary consoles, stashing her ruck under the board neatly.

"The guy's name was Solomon Dove-Philippe." Tharsis replies. "He got transported here about 10 minutes before the building he was attending a party at in Enaj got blown to smithereens. Took 15,000 people out when it went down. Apparently it was a terrorist attack, oddly enough perpetrated by the guy he thought was playing a joke on him. He uh... had a hard attack after I'd convinced him he'd travelled over 900 years into the future."

The Intel-Commander hands Gideon a PDA, "Welcome back Commander. I'll leave it to you to brief the others on the mission, I'll see you're given your old uniform back." Mr Intel takes his leave and Commander Gideon, still looking scruffy, but he holds himself up a little taller and straighter. He glances down at the PDA, "We have time to shower and change at least." He looks to Tharsis, "I assume you'll want to download the information on this, you have a slot I can plug it into?"

Tharsis pops open an interface panel on his main console. "I can hook up to it here." he says.

Marina runs light fingers around the edge of the consol. "Just beautiful," she murmurs, then stands. "Sir? Congratulations, sir." She saultes Gid and smiles. "Orders?"

"Take a break," nods Sam. "We have a couple of other crew members and I need a shower, a shave and a change." Sam looks at the hologram, "Anything interesting in there I should know about?"

Tharsis's console indicators flash for a few moments as he links up with and downloads the data from the PDA. "Hmmm... nothing special that I can see. Take a look around, look for anything out of the ordinary, take some readings and get the heck out of there." he says.

Sam Gideon picks up his bag and raises an eyebrow, "Somewhere around here I can change?"

Marina nods and leans down to tug the ruck out from under the consol. "Yessir." She waits for the answer on where the quarters might be, and then heads off.

"Sure. There's a lavatory off the main living area." Tharsis replies. "There's bunks in the living area as well along with the kitchenette. I have some provisions stocked if you're hungry." he offers.

"Send orders to New Luna for full provisions," says Sam walking towards the living area. "I want food for six people for one month, emergency provisions for six months, emergency fuel pod and weapons. Charge it to the account number on the PDA."

"Allrighty." Tharsis replies. "I'll get that order in."

Tharsis has a few system diagnostics running across some of his screens as he checks that his systems are in working order.

Marina coughs softly, pausing in the entrance. "Permission to enter?"

"Hmm? Oh, certainly." Tharsis replies.

Stepping onto the bridge, Marina rolls her shoulders and re-settles the jacket over her tunic. "Well. I must admit I didn't think I'd meet you again under such circumstances," she steps down to the secondary stations.

"Neither did I." Tharsis says. "I wanted to see the galaxy, but watching it come apart at the seams isn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Mmm, indeed. I admit, coming back on board with the Fleet at the end of time is not exactly how I imagined things either. Still- rather die in uniform than not, wot?" Marina grins and slides into the seats. "I haven't served on a bridge in, oh, years though."

"Not to worry. I've got direct control of my systems." Tharsis replies. "Unless something drastic happens there shouldn't be a need for someone to take the reigns." he says, then adds a bit timidly. "I hope nothing that bad happens..."

"Well..." Marina eyes the couch, "yeah. Me too."

Tharsis activates his holo-projection in the main seat and swivels it to look to Marina. "I've just got a bad feeling about all of this. The other day when that rabbit dude showed up, my Spindrive turned into a rack of Demarian Scientific, then my impulse drive turned into a potato boiler, then my consoles turned into friggin' mushrooms! I nearly became a firey wreck on New Luna." he recounts. "If something like that happens the closer we get to that rift..."

Marina blinks. "That's sort of odd...well, no 'sort' about it, really. I don't know a whole lot about how you work, of course...sentient ships are pretty low on my list. Maybe you could talk to Lildrina?"

"If that rift makes things go wacky again like that, there's not much she'll be able to do." Tharsis laments. "We'll just have to hope for the best."

"Maybe she could come up with a way to...I dunno, shield the ship from the rift's affects. She's pretty clever." Marina shrugs and hooks one knee over another.

"Worth a shot..." Tharsis says. "I just get the feeling that rift transcends space and time itself, so there's no telling what it can do."

"...do you think maybe things were altered because, in another time, that is what they were? Potato boilers and things?" Marina hmms. "Time theory is so interesting."

"It's possible. Perhaps objects that were occupying the same space in another time." Tharsis replies. "It was an.. odd sensation, to say the least."

Marina shudders. "I can only imagine. I wonder if it does that to people too." She pauses and considers. "What sort of medical facilities do you have here?"

"I don't have dedicated facilities I'm afraid." Tharsis replies. "Just a selection of emergency medical supplies."

"Perhaps I better take a look at those...we might need to pick some things up before we go anywhere, if there's not a medical bay." Marina grimaces. "Field triage /is/ my specialty mind you."

The Tharsis Crew's new commander strides onto the bridge and takes his seat at the primary console. He glances towards the hologram with a wry smile, "I'll try not to push any buttons that would annoy you." A small pause, "Status report?"

"The provisions should be arriving within a half hour on the next shuttle." Tharsis replies. "I am fully operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly." he says, before responding to Marina, "You'll find the medical supplies in a cabinet near the crew bunks."

Marina nods, then rises and salutes Gid. "Permission to check on medical supplies, sir," she replies crisply.

Sam Gideon chuckles a little at the 'sir' and salute, "Permission granted."

Marina heads on out the door to do just that, whoosh!

"Mr Tharsis?" says Gideon with a frown.

Tharsis looks up from his diagnostics. "Yes?"

"I imagine the PDA included our military channel, identification code and security code and clearance," says the Commander with his eyebrow raised.

"Yes, it did. I've integrated it into my communications protocols and transponder codes so we should be good to go." Tharsis replies.

"Send a confirmation of our situation to the Admiralty," says Gideon. "And Mr Tharsis?"

Tharsis' console indicators come to life as his comm system switches on. "Yes?"

"You wouldn't happen to have any skill on... interception and decoding of similiar signals not on our cleared channel would you?" Sam grins mischeviously.

"I'm pretty good at information security protocols and mathematical algorithms." Tharsis says. "I've cracked a few codes in my time."

Sam nods, "See what you can do. I prefer to stay informed, let me know if anything interesting comes up."

"Sure thing." Tharsis says as one of his screens comes to life displaying a variety of frequency scopes of various communications bands. Indicators begin sweeping along the bands looking for signals. "I've got an ear to INN as well. It's been alive with the usual press chatter but maybe there'll be something worthwhile on there eventually."

"Very good," says Gideon. "I'm surprised you've gone along with this actually. I don't have much of a choice unless I wanted to go AWOL, I'm fairly sure you didn't have to let them press-gang you like that."

"Well, I have to admit a certain curiousity about all of it." Tharsis says. "Still awfully nervous about it, but if it means I can keep my impulse drive from becoming a potato boiler again, I'm all for it."

"And retirement was starting to look so interesting too," chuckles Sam. "I'm surprised they didn't find someone else to lead this mission, even with my other activities I'm hardly the most qualified. However... best we just make do with what we have."

"I've finished calibrating my primary sensor nets so we should be able to get some good readings." Tharsis says. "With some luck we may be able to map out some sort of event horizon so we can keep a safe distance from the worst of it."

"Didn't seem to stop Solomon appearing on your couch," says Sam with a raised eyebrow.

"True, but at the very least we might be able to avoid dropping into some kind of portal to hell." Tharsis says.

"Point taken," nods Sam seriously. "Damage limitation can't hurt."

"It's kinda eerie in a way. Rifts like these are how dad got to this universe in the first place." Tharsis says. "After his.. counterpart in this universe was destroyed by rogue Phyrrians from ours. Full circle, in a way..."

"Well, we'll try to keep you in ours," says Sam. "Let's not go looking to complete any circles we don't have to."

"Heartily agreed." Tharsis says. "Interdimensional jumps aren't on my travel plans."

"Let's wait on the crew getting up to speed," says Sam. "Then we'll take care of this little bit of business, some scientist will figure how to close the rift. I can get back to my retirement and you can get back to exploring out this sector of space."

"A stitch in time saves nine?" Tharsis says. "I think I read that somewhere once."

Sam Gideon grins and nods.