Chapter 3.4: Breaking down the base

[zuhrovet]

As the meeting ends, the team members move to their assigned tasks.

Dar, Deyna, Seyli and Sulen collect some heavy-duty servitors and begin transferring supplies to the Cantata.

Alaric, Reshad, Shess, and the Cantata's drone prepare to remove the harness from Ankat's moth, The Sedulous Eel.

Back on the Cantata, Sasha goes to her office and starts remotely wiping memory nodes on the base's grid. Jedao is in the Communications/Gunnery room, controlling the weapons. Xiulan acts as his backup. Remi has been instructed to look for patterns or causes of the missing interstellar signals.

Meanwhile, Hana and Eddox look after the mothlings, perhaps joined by Mafyyil, who for some reason has not received clear instructions. Gerae and Ione divide their attention between the mothlings and the nest of pseudo-dragons.

[Welcome to a new move!

I know that things are stressful and uncertain for all of us right now. Please don't fret if you suddenly find yourself with less or more free time than usual--we will adjust! If you would like to give your character a node of peace where they drink tea and admire baby aliens for the next while, this can be arranged. Conversely, if you want a plotty distraction, we will bring you one!

My own focus is unreliable of late, but I'll work on a recap of the previous move as I can.]

Comments

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[yhlee]

[I mean, anyone who hears the request could question the order, given the time constraints!]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[flowersforgraves]

Deyna raises an eyebrow, but responds as soon as her implant pings.

will do. txt to sulen etc y/n?

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[zuhrovet]

Sasha replies, "will clear u."

[Assume she sends a terse message to Dar, and to Seyli & Sulen if they're not joining the search party?]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[flowersforgraves]

Deyna slips out the back of the room where she'd been meeting with Dar, Sulen, and Seyli. As she heads to the edge of the station, she accesses the maps Sasha sent her. It looks like she can make a quick circuit without too much trouble, and it'll help her check out any shortcuts besides.

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[yhlee]

When Deyna gets to the corridor where Remi vanishes, she can see the very slight scuffing of footprints, which go up to the spot where he vanished and then--nothing.

[If you have questions about other specific locations, let me know.]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[flowersforgraves]

She almost steps over the scuffed-up footprints, but thinks better of it at the last moment. Instead, she stays a few steps back and peers down the corridor. The rest of the corridor looks relatively normal -- but to be fair, Deyna hadn't been paying much attention to the individual corridors in the time she's spent here. She reaches forward, poking a finger past where Remi's footprints stop.

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[yhlee]

There's a brief, faint shimmer in the air, but it practically evanesces as soon as Deyna tries to look at it directly. It might be her imagination, but the air is slightly chillier in the vicinity of the footsteps before the normal circulation of station atmosphere smooths it out to the ambient temperature.

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[venndaai]

Sulen arrives in the corridor, and pauses about ten feet behind Deyna. "Found something?"

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[flowersforgraves]

Deyna jerks around at Sulen's comment. She hadn't heard the alt approach, and she wishes she'd been paying more attention. "Don't know yet." She gestures at the area in front of her. "Does this feel colder to you?"

Maybe she should've asked Sasha for more specifics of what she should be looking for. But if her mind isn't playing tricks on her, then this has definitely got to qualify as weird enough.

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[venndaai]

Sulen raises their eyebrows and walks up closer, though still keeping a good amount of distance between them. They tentatively wave a hand out in front of them. "I'm... not sure. Would the station systems know?"

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[stormglass]

Heading through the base to where Deyna and Sulen are, Xiulan retraces past steps where she’s able. She’s been through one rift unexpectedly before; she has no interest in repeating the experience.

The other two spotted, she holds up the box and says to Sulen, “Sasha sent these along for monitoring the rift. Did you already hear the plan?"

[She will query the base grid to see if it has radiation sensors (apparently modern day spacecraft have something, so worth a shot looking!) and, if so what data they have about this corridor.]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[yhlee]

The base grid does indeed have radiation sensors. The radiation flux is very slight but nonzero, and different here than elsewhere in the base.

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[zuhrovet]

[The other conversation is taking place on the Cantata--do you want to move the hair's appearance here?]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[yhlee]

[*facepalm* Sorry, work is RIDICULOUS right now and also my mom just called and I am clearly failing at reading comprehension. Please?]

Re: physical checks - paging Deyna

[zuhrovet]

[Done! I screened the other comment with hair appearing from rifts.]

An open riftlet: paging Deyna, Sulen, and Xiulan

[zuhrovet]

As Xiulan finishes her sentence, a single curly brown hair materializes and drifts away from the riftlet.

Re: An open riftlet: paging Deyna, Sulen, and Xiulan

[venndaai]

Sulen takes a pen out of a pocket, and raises an eyebrow at Deyna and Xiulan, miming a tossing gesture towards the empty air in front of them.

Re: An open riftlet: paging Deyna, Sulen, and Xiulan and anyone listening in

[stormglass]

Xiulan nods to Sulen, pointing at the bugs in the container Sasha had provided. Pulling one out, she gives it a closer examination and flicks it on, before handing it to the alt for pitching into the rift.

Checking her tablet again, she reviews for another radiation flux at the moment they saw the hair and continues monitoring for anything of note as the bug insertion is attempted.

As she does so, she subvocalizes to a group of the Cantata’s crew, including the Cantata itself and the Gunnery console. ”We just saw what looks like a piece of Remi’s hair float out of this rift. Sulen’s attempting to get one of the bugs to the other side. There was a slight radiation flux in this area, may be related. Sensors aren't show it occur elsewhere.”

[I was thinking of externally affixed subvocal mics from cyberpunk settings for when people don't have implants, so hopefully that works as an accessory here for communicators for those without augments. If not, will modify.

Per discussion with zuhrovet, we’re assuming batteries have been affixed to the bugs to provide power.]

Re: An open riftlet: paging Deyna, Sulen, and Xiulan and anyone listening in

[hoardingpearls]

Monitoring the grid for further errors, Reshad catches the message, and replies to it, including Kaliyan and her contact aboard the other moth.

The radiation fault Xiulan just found can correlate with the air pressure drops attached. They look like errors, but the correlation is too much to be coincidence. Alert on the combination to reduce false positives. Cantata, can you detect anything similar aboard or associated with the other moths?

At this point, she's not sure the moth's senses have limits; the answer will be interesting in multiple facets. If the friendly moth can sense this, it's yet more reason to free the others before fleeing the dead galaxy.

Experimentation!

[venndaai]

Sulen tosses the bug lightly at the empty patch of air, and then takes a step backward.

Re: An open riftlet: paging Deyna, Sulen, and Xiulan

[flowersforgraves]

The corner of Deyna's mouth twitches. "Go on," she says, shifting her weight from one side to the other.