Icarus Lives

C

Cotillion

Guest
Original poster
It was the year 2643. Humans had long since invented an effective form of space travel, and had colonized a large portion of new planets. Alien life was still undiscovered.

The USG Urchin hurtled through space, its inhabitants deep in hypersleep. Unbeknownst to the travelers, the ship had been pulled off course, and was making its way further and further away from their destination of Earth, heading towards the nearest sun. There were several unlabeled containers in the cargo bay, one of them leaking an odorless gas in to the ship. Picking up those containers had been a government sanctioned mission, and the crew of the Urchin hadn't bothered asking questions.​




Davis woke up to blaring sirens. Emergency lights pulsed, bathing the hypersleep chambers in an ominous red glow. He sat up, yawning, his hands moving up to his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them, looking around for other signs of life. Nobody else seemed to have woken up just yet. He got out of the pod, carefully examining the cabin. There didn't appear to be anything wrong; the air vents were still open and the safety doors hadn't been dropped down. So, no quarantine. I wonder what happened. Davis sat down in the nearest chair, taking a look at the computer, hoping to find out why all the alarms were going off while he waited for the others to wake up.

Davis hadn't been a member of the Urchin's crew for very long. At twenty-five, he was one of the younger members, hired shortly after he graduated from flight school. He had shown promise as a pilot and had graduated the top of his class. Oddly enough, he hadn't even had to apply for a position as a pilot before he was scooped up. They said they had scouted him, and were desperate for pilots. He didn't think much of it at the time, but after several months on the job he discovered that the USG Urchin wasn't exactly on the level; they often ran smuggling operations and needed to make fast getaways if things went sour. It wasn't his cup of tea, but it paid well and he wasn't going to complain about that. Some times they even took legitimate jobs, much like the one they had just finished on Triton. The galactic government had hired them to pick up that cargo, and had paid extra for no questions asked. He wondered what could be so important.
 
Serenity turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut harder, the harsh red was blinding her. She tried to ignore it but it was unrelenting, she sighed an opened her eyes. She could see that the red glow was coming from lights in the ceiling, weren't they the emergency lights? As the hypersleep wore off and her mind cleared, she could also hear sirens. Was that normal? She doubted it but tried to remain optimistic, she _DSC1752-WEB-ModelMayhem.jpgstepped out of her chamber a bit unsteady.

She saw someone sitting in a nearby chair, she made her way slowly over there still feeling a bit faint.

She recognized him as one of the crew, she'd noticed him when she'd boarded. She couldn't recall his name, but he worked on board so maybe he could tell her what was going on. She gently tapped him on the shoulder, "excuse me, you work here right?" She gestured to the lights, "could you tell me whats going on?"

She had a very bad feeling that something was wrong, it would serve her right of course. She'd wanted to visit her elderly grandmother on a planet that had been colonized and made into a sort of retirement village, but she couldn't afford a commercial flight. So she'd asked around and found that this ship would be willing to take her there for half the normal fee, she'd jumped at the chance. They were supposed to be dropping her off on the way back to Earth, she had a sinking feeling she wasn't going to get there.
 
He hadn't anticipated someone tapping him on the shoulder, so when he felt someone touch him, he jumped a bit. He turned around, seeing that it was the girl that they had picked up back on Triton. "You could say that. I'm the pilot," he smiled. "And I'm working on figuring out what's going on. Everything looks normal, so I'm not sure why the lights and alarms are going off." Turning back towards the console, he decided he would deactivate the alarms. No use waking up the rest of the crew if nothing was wrong. With the flip of a couple of switches, the alarms were deactivated, the room around them returning to normal. Might have just been a glitch in the system, he thought.

He stood up and addressed the girl, holding out his hand to her, "I'm Ben. Ben Davis. But most people call me Davis." Before he could finish the sentence, there was a violent crash, jolting him around. Something had hit the ship.
 
Serenity was a little surprised, so he was the pilot. He seemed young for the job, she was expecting some fifty year old guy. However he seemed to have everything in hand, so she relaxed a little. She was very relieved when the lights and sirens stopped, as her eyes readjusted she noticed that no one else had woken up. As far as she could tell anyway. She turned her attention back to Ben, she took his hand and smiled. "Nice to meet you Ben." "My names Serenity" she was about to say more when suddenly the ship rocked violently.

She was caught off guard and fell forward, instinctively grabbing hold of Ben's arm. She blushed a little and steadied herself on a chair, 'sorry about that." The rocking stopped for a moment, she looked at Ben "that wasn't too serious was it?" She was trying to remain calm, she had never traveled in space before and she was feeling quite tense.
 
"No, nothing to worry about," Davis lied. Before they had gone in to hypersleep, he had plotted a course to Shadow, the planet the girl needed to be dropped off at. He specifically plotted the course to avoid any asteroid fields and any other major debris that might be in their way. The fact that something had hit them meant he was either an idiot and didn't know how to plot a course, or they had gotten pulled wildly off course and had wandered in to an asteroid field. He needed to find out where they were, without alarming the girl, so he could set them back on track. "Here, come with me, I'll show you around the ship. I need to check something in the cabin anyways, and seeing as you normally wouldn't be allowed to wander around the ship, now is probably your best chance to take a look around one of these things."

Davis was weary of the passenger. He knew he had plotted the course correctly, and he had been one of the first to go in to hypersleep, so that meant someone had tampered with his course after he had gone to sleep. For the most part, he trusted everyone on the ship, except for this girl, someone he had only just met. By having her come with him, he could keep an eye on her, and potentially save any further harm coming to the ship. He just needed to find a way to wake some of the others up without drawing attention to himself.
 
Serenity doubted he was telling the truth, but wasn't about to tell him so. After all what did she know about space travel? She pondered his offer, on the one hand she wanted to say yes. She was interested in seeing the ship, and didn't really want to stay here by herself. However he didn't really seem to want her company, so she hesitated for a moment.

She nodded and gave him a slightly nervous smile, "alright then." She followed him and examined the ship with fascination. She couldn't stand the silence so she tried to make conversation, "so are......., how long have you been pilot here?" She vaguely wondered why no one else had woken up, and decided it must be some small problem. She tried not to dwell on it, as she was nervous enough as it is.

Serenity gazed in wonder at all the different devices of and on the ship, she noticed Ben doing some things but didn't pay him much attention. She noticed a small ((port hole)) and peered outside, she gasped it was amazing. She turned to Ben with a smile "its really beautiful isn't it." She turned back to the view, "your so lucky you get to work here." "This is my first time in space." She said quietly, the view almost made her fell at ease...... almost.

((Right word? lol XD))
 
(yeah that's the word :D Also, it's sci-fi, just come up with shit if you can't think of the word for it :3)

Thankfully the girl had agreed to come on the tour with him. Good, he thought, I'll get to keep an eye on her. Davis led the way through the ship, occasionally stopping to point out some of the various instruments and sections of the ship. The ship wasn't all that big, and there wasn't much to see, but the girl looked on in fascination. Maybe she really is telling the truth, Davis thought. "I've been the pilot here for...nearly two years."

Davis had been ready to move on to the cockpit, but the girl stood there, looking out of one of the port holes. "Yeah, it really is quite beautiful. You never really grow tired of it," Ben said, joining her at the port hole. In the two years he had been flying out here, he still couldn't get over how majestic the universe looked. "Come on, cabin is just through here."

Stepping through the door, in to the cabin, Davis went to look at the charts, trying to determine just where the hell they were. After a couple of minutes, he had the answer, and it wasn't pretty. They had been thrown off course by a significant margin. It would take them at least a month to get back on course. How the hell had they gotten thrown off course that badly? Davis wasn't sure, but he had to get them back on track before they went too much further. As he was adjusting the course of the ship, a huge explosion rocked the engines. "Oh...shit. Whatever we hit must have damaged the engines. I need you to go back to the hypersleep chambers and wake everyone...right now."

Davis tried not to panic; he generally kept calm in the face of danger, and this situation was going to push his calm to the brink. If they couldn't get the engines working, and soon, they were going to fly straight in to a sun.
 
((Alright then XD))

Serenity nodded her agreement, "i don't think i ever could." She took one last look at the view before following Ben into the cockpit. She stood quiet in the doorway, keeping out of his way whilst he studied what appeared to be star charts. He seemed to be quite confused, she was going to ask him what the problem was but there was a sudden explosion.

He turned to her and told her to wake everyone else up, she wanted to know what was going on but the look on his face made her hold her tongue. She ventured a quick glance over his shoulder, then nodded and hurried into the corridor. She ran as fast as she could, she had seen the distressed look on Ben's face and the sun directly in their path.

Once she entered the hyper sleep chambers, she approached the closet sleeping pod. It belonged to an older gentlemen, a man aged about 50. She shook his shoulders gently, "sir can you hear me?" He started to blink, "you have to wake up right now." She said nicely but firmly.
 
Beads of sweat started dripping down Davis' head. All propulsion systems were out of commission. That wasn't a good sign, but hopefully the girl would manage to get the rest of the crew, and together they would figure something about. His best guess was that they had a couple of hours before they were burnt to a crisp, which might be enough time to at least divert their path out of the way of the sun. Davis looked out in to space, wondering what had hit that, and what could have caused that explosion when he noticed something. Something that he thought might have been an illusion. It wasn't on any of his charts, which made it all the more strange. There was a planet there, vaguely resembling Earth.

"Who the hell are you?" the men yelled. "And what are you doing on my ship?"
 
Serenity frowned, jeez that was a bit of an overreaction. She realized hyper sleep could make you disoriented but he seemmed........a little off. She gave a serious no nonsense look, "look I'm a passenger OK? Nows not the time, the pilot needs everyone awake now." She approached a second pod, and turned back to look at the man "wanna help me out here?" Shaking awake another crew member she moved onto the next pod, after a few minutes she had everyone basically awake.

She stood in the doorway of the room and turned to face the drowsy crew members, 'OK listen up everybody." She made sure everyone was sort of paying attention before continuing, "the pilot needs everyone to wake up and focus." "Something has gone wrong and he needs your help." She wondered how much of this was getting through, most of them were still trying to focus.

((Not sure how to describe their behaviour, has the gas already started to leak?))
 
(Yeah it's started to leak. They're all infected now, some start showing signs sooner than others)

The captain looked at the girl. She looked vaguely familiar to him, he thought he should know who she was but his mind was clouded from the hypersleep. "What happened?" he asked, trying to remember the way to the cockpit. Memories slowly started to flood in to his head. He remembered the girl now, she was a passenger, and he also remembered the cargo they had picked up. He would need to check on it after this business with the pilot was figured out.

Some of the crew looked restless, fidgeting with their hands, scratching at itches all over their bodies. The captain glanced over at one of the cooks; there were droplets of blood flowing in to the cook's eyes. "Hey Kelvin, you feeling ok?"

"Just a bit tired is all," the cook responded, scratching furiously at his forearm, "I'll be fine."

The captain nodded. Better get the crew checked out by the doc when we get a chance. He followed the girl to the cockpit.
 
((K :) ))

Serenity turned to look at the man she had woken first, "something large hit the ship and the was an explosion in the engines." She paused a moment before continuing, "there is a sun directly in our path." She continued to lead the way to the cockpit, she was trying to go slow for their skes but also quickly for Ben's. Some of the crew looked quite ill and she was worried about them and herself.

She stepped into the room but allowed everyone else to converge on Ben first, she didn't want to be in the way. She stood quietly against a wall and waited for someone to say the problem was fixed, hopefully she wouldn't have to wait to long. She glanced around at the crew memebrs, she decided she could at least make herself useful by assiting them. She knew a little about medicince and they seemed to be infected with sme sort of virus, as they were dispaying simaliar syptoms. She was confused however a to how it had spread so quickly, and she wondered if she herself was already sick.
 
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