Traveller Session 4: Into the Volcano
Jul. 15th, 2023 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzJuly 12 / 023-1104
From where they were standing at least the descent seemed easier than climbing up the side of the volcano. As far as they could tell there was nothing living on the volcano that could have made a path down to the lake, so they would have to do without one. On the plus side, the inside of the volcano looked smoother and more polished than its rocky outside and they also didn't need to go down as far as they had just climbed up; the lake was certainly no more than 800 metres below them. There were shrubs and bushes, roughly waist-high for the humans and about shoulder-high for Parappa. Some lava tubes jutting out from the rock wall where in the active past of the volcano lava had spewed out were a silent testimony of a violent past.
"Well, we've come this far. It seems a shame to go back." Moira said, her voice light.
Shifting the weight of the flight case of spare parts he was carrying, Qupar was the first to move. He started picking his way down carefully, leaving the rest at the crest of the crater.
"Might as well." Myles replied drily, and he started to follow Qupar down.
The walk down to the lake took them about twenty minutes, and as they arrived at the shore Qupar set down the flight case, reached over his head and pulled his shirt off over his head. His trousers were next.
"I like you man, but not in that way." Hasta laughed.
Parappa followed suit, already shrugging off his caftan and even Moira stripped down to her underwear.
"I don't think we should all swim at the same time." Hasta remarked. He wasn't taking off any of his clothes yet, fidgeting with the hatchet and the knife clipped to his belt. His scowl swept over the lake, the island and their surroundings, almost inviting something, anything, to make his day more interesting and fun.
Qupar stuffed his clothes in the flight case. It was a tight fit, but if any water were to get in the flight case perhaps the clothes would absorb any moisture before the more delicate electronics could be damaged. He lifted the flight case over his head and started walking into the lake. He made sure to tread carefully so as not to fall and it was slow going, but even halfway into the lake the water would reach no higher than his chest.
Myles and Moira were still at the shore, a flight case between them. They carefully tested whether the case would float by lowering it slowly into the water. It seemed to dip a bit, but the box wasn't heavy enough to fully submerge. It was a comforting thought that the invaluable equipment inside could at least not sink to the bottom.
"I'm not attached to the tents." Moira said to the rest of the group.
Qupar turned around to face them. "Myles might want to give them to the needy."
"We can always fly up and pick them up later if need be." Myles retorted. "We'll only need them if we need to make camp."
From his perch on the shore, Hasta surveyed the ship. It was triangle-shaped, its nose a sharp point jutting out near the edge of the lake. The rear was a wide bulk, with twin engines at the back. The ship was thicker in the middle, tapering down to the sides only emphasising the triangle shape. On the starboard side of the ship a small airlock would allow passengers and crew to enter and exit the ship, and up top was a small cupola with a double laser gun turret that would allow a handy gunner to defend the ship from any enemies.
Hasta suddenly perked up, pointing excitedly at the laser turrets. "Boom, let's go then!" Apparently his enthusiasm for guns included ship’s weaponry as well. The mere thought at getting acquainted with the gun turret seemed to spur him on. Still, he stayed in place while the rest crossed over to the island, watching their backs and making sure nothing would jump out and attack them.
It took them about five minutes to cross, Parappa swimming lazily and quite contentedly in the murky water. He seemed to be enjoying the bath more than the others and was only a little dismayed that there was no mud to lounge in. As soon as they reached the island Hasta also made the crossing while the rest of them were putting their clothes back on.
The island was littered with a ton of rubbish and the hull of the scout ship was marked with some scorch blasts and scratches, but Moira judged it to be nothing serious. The immediate surroundings looked like someone methodically dumped out the entire contents of the ship in no particular order. There were boxes, crates, ripped wrappers of rations and bags littered on the whole island between the bushes and shrubs that grew there. As the rest moved towards the airlock, something caught Qupar's eye. Between the wrappers and other assorted litter he bent over to pick up a small metal bowl. On the side was stamped the name 'Kimbley'. It looked a little bit like a feeding bowl of some kind. With a grunt, Qupar tossed it back into the pile of rubbish where he found it and he joined the others at the airlock.
Major Casarii had provided them with the seven digit access code for the High and Dry and the keypad at the airlock accepted it. The doors, however, did not. Groaning loudly, they opened a little bit and then got stuck. Moira tried to open them by herself, and Qupar nudged Myles to give Hasta a hand. Together they opened the door and they made their way into the High and Dry. They found themselves in a narrow hallway, with doors on either side.
"This is a trap." Hasta said nervously. "Probably a dog will jump out and make us all freak out, and then I'd have to kill it."
"Its name is Kimbley;" Qupar motioned over his shoulder vaguely, but didn't explain further. He grabbed his knife and was ready to start clearing rooms.
"Do the bridge first." Hasta said. "Let Moira do her magic there while we clear the rest of the ship."
The interior of the ship was a mess, even worse than the outside. Wall panels and access panels were all open. There were wires dangling out of most of them and stuff had been connected haphazardly as if the former crew had to bypass or jury-rig things. As much as the island looked like they systematically cleared out the ship, the inside looked like someone took the time to take it apart piece by piece looking for valuable things. The place was ransacked. The only lights that were working were the emergency lights and there were obvious problems with the power supply. It looked like the ship was going to need a lot of work just to get it back together and in a working state.
Qupar checked for a medical bay on board, but there was only a ship's locker. To his surprise there were still some basic medical supplies stored in it. Not something he would leave behind if he would abandon ship to trek up a mountain, but then who could tell how the previous crew thought.
Thirty minutes later, they met up at the bridge and share their thoughts
"No further damage than initially stated." Moira said, sounding hopeful. "We have the parts so we can replace and repair as expected."
"The power is down, batteries drained. We'll need to cycle up the reactors at some point to get them charged again." Parappa ticked off on his fingers. "We'll have to check all these major systems and fix them, so.... Flight controls, that's Hasta's job, check them and get them back operational. General electronics that have been pulled, chips that need to be reset in the proper housing, that's you, Dendr and Qupar, all over the ship please. Myles can check on the power systems and reroute where needed. And I'll work on the drive systems."
As night fell outside, the first part of the work was pretty much done. Most of the circuits were back in their proper slots and although the deck was still a mess of litter and rubbish, the ship might be ready for some tests in the morning. Hasta was still purging the computer in the bridge, downloading a new OS and setting up the security protocols. Qupar was looking for some air filters to replace, finally tracing around the exterior of the ship after checking the piles of abandoned things inside. The air would get stale in space without proper filters, and even old second-hand filters would be much better than none at all. He half remembered seeing something like that when he made his first recon trip around the ship that morning.
The small bushes near the ship rustled. For a moment, Qupar couldn't decide if it was just the wind making the leaves shake, but as the wind died down for a moment, the rustling returned.
He carefully turned towards the noise, removing the wrapper from the ration bar he was eating. The rustling continued, and Qupar called out to it softly. "You want to come out here?"
There was no reply. "Come here then." he tried again, holding out the ration bar towards the noise.
A shape slowly edged towards him. When he could finally make out the details, it was a creature with sleek brown fur that stood about knee-high. It had four paws and a longer, black mane running from the back of the neck over its spine to the tail. Its face sported narrow lips that seemed pulled back over the huge fangs protruding out towards Qupar and its ears laid flat towards the back of the head, making for an aerodynamic look that would frighten off any intruders.
It seemed scared and hungry.
"Myles? Come out here for a sec." Qupar called back to the ship. As Myles came towards him, Qupar said; "I think I found Kimbley."
The creature still didn't approach Qupar, and eyed Myles warily. Its eyes soon flicked back to the ration bar.
Qupar threw the ration to the shore, a little way away from them to the side of the creature, where it bounded to grab and eat it.
"Myles, do you think Hasta wants a puppy?" Qupar asked.
"I don't think he's responsible enough." Myles laughed. "Are we going to keep it?"
"Only if you clean up after it." Qupar said. "I think it's a Tenser's Wolf. I don't think it's native to the Spinward Marches but I've seen people keep them as guard dogs." He shuddered at the memory. He'd had several run-ins with creatures on guard, but Kimbley seemed reasonably harmless, or at least it did for now. "It seems to know its name, Kimbley."
As soon as Parappa met Kimbley it was clear the creature had made its choice. It started following Parappa around faithfully, not letting him out of its sight.
Moira was struggling with trying to access the ship's logs, but they seemed to be encrypted.
"Flammarion." Moira sighed. "Something doesn't fit for me. The mere fact that Major Casarii needed to hire outside help to retrieve the ship. The fact that he had to smuggle us out under armed guard, disguised as prisoners. I'd really like to learn what is in these logs." She banged the panel in frustration but it didn't help her case.
"Something’s fishy." Hasta agreed. "I'll take a look at those files."
Whatever he tried, the files rebuked them both. Their contents were protected by what seemed to be military-grade encryption. They plugged in a portable computer to run a more specialised decryption program, but there was no way to gain access to the files' content. In the end they copied them in full to the portable computer so they would still have access after returning the ship to Scout Services.
The next day was spent on more repairs to get the ship fully operational again. It was a long day of tedious work in messy surroundings. Nobody seemed particularly bothered to start clearing away the rubbish but at least Kimbley didn't make it any worse than it was. They turned in early, because on the morning of 025-1104 they planned to do a shake-down test.
Moira took her place at the controls on the bridge, Parappa by her side. The others were strapped in securely in their places, even Kimbley in a crate tied down near Parappa's seat to make sure it couldn’t slide around on the deck plating during manoeuvres.
There were a few bangs as the engine tried to power up but they soon levelled out to a nice hum. The control panels in front of Moira showed mostly green lights. She checked them quickly and glanced over to her co-pilot, Parappa. On his consoles a few lights were blinking orange, but Parappa whacked a panel near him and the lights changed to green lights, no longer blinking. Parappa turned to Moira and gave her an encouraging nod.
Taking the controls firmly in hand Moira let the scout ship take off on thrusters. There was a slight drift to the left, as if something wasn't calibrated properly, but it seemed to her that it wasn't something they could fix then and there. Behind them, a console threw a couple of sparks as if to emphasise the sketchiness of their repairs.
"We'll have to make a new List for this one." Moira murmured mostly to herself. "If it's important we'll fix the sparks later."
She tugged on the controls and the scout ship touched down again on the island with a little bump. Moira rotated her seat to look at Hasta, in the chair next to Qupar, out of the way. "Would you like to give the turret a test-firing, Hasta?"
"I would." Hasta bounced out of his seat and almost flew up the steps to the gunner's cupola up top. He fired off a couple of cheeky laser shots and reported in. "Not a lot of power, but it seems to work."
Moira landed the ship as a final part of the initial test, and they agreed to get to work on the geological survey for Minister Greene. His instructions for the scans had been extensive and they knew what was expected from them. In the heap of things littered around the cargo bay six seismic charges were found, and Moira and Parappa piloted the ship to six spots on the inside of the crater to plant the charges in a rough hexagon shape around the lake. The charges would create a low-level seismic shock and broadcast their findings to the ship's computer. For optimal results, they should be roughly in the centre between the charges, so Moira landed the ship back on the island and prepared to read out the computer's analysis.
It would take several hours for the computer to analyse the findings, so they settle in to wait. To pass the time Moira fiddled with the ship some more.
"Fuel status is good, but the jump drive seems to be blinking an error. We need to set down at a star port to calibrate." she reported.
A slight tremor ran through the ship.
"Was that a ship tremor or a planet tremor?" Dendr asked.
Parappa pulled up some visuals on his screen. Outside the ship, inside the crater of the volcano there are plumes of gas and dust, and in the lake some air bubbles seemed to be rising to the surface. The crew nervously kept an eye on their surroundings, flicking through the views of the outside cameras, but after a little while everything calmed down again.
The computer readout confirmed that the volcano was not likely to erupt any time soon and it was just a tremor. At that, the crew visibly relaxed and Qupar released his death-grip on the panel next to him. An urgent beep from the computer made his vice grip return instantly. A warning that popped up on screen read that the eruption predicted in six months' time has had its schedule pulled back to T-minus six minutes. And counting.
"Let's get the hell away from here!" Hasta shouted.
Moira and Parappa revved the engines and the High and Dry bolted into the air, still tilting slightly to the left. It took Moira a moment to compensate, and they circled the crater for a hot minute to check the state of the volcano.
On the monitors they could see the bubbles in the lake had disappeared and the lake was draining. Plumes of steam rose from several fissures, and as Qupar browsed the exterior camera images he could see the southwestern outside of the crater was spewing lava.
The next computer started beeping, adding to the cacophony of warnings. This one was next to Dendr, beeping that there was an incoming transmission. He glanced around the bridge, and then accepted the connection.
"Come in High and Dry! Come in!" an urgent voice shouted from the speakers on the comm panel.
"Hello, Pizza Express." Dendr said cheerfully.
"Pizza Express? I need the High and Dry! Who is this? Get off this frequency, this is urgent. Calling High and Dry, come in High and Dry!"
"Hello High and Dry." Dendr quipped in the same sing-song voice.
"This is Minister Greene, first minister for Offworld Affairs, Public Relations, and Fisheries."
"You need a shorter title." Dendr replied drily.
"What's going on!?" the minister sounded panicked. "We have data coming in about trouble with the volcano. What's going on up there?"
"You have about six minutes to live." Dendr replied earnestly. "I suggest you find a place to pray. There is bound to be a place of worship near your position you can visit."
"What do you mean? Tell me what's going on up there!"
"Please hold." Dendr replied. He pulled up the external camera angle. "Visibility is crap, there seems to be a lot of smoke up here, and I can't really see."
"I need to make an assessment. I need that data right now! I have people to report to!"
The minister's panic didn't seem to affect Dendr in the least but Parappa glanced over his shoulder at Dendr, looking very uncomfortable with how the ex-journalist was handling things. The ship lurched suddenly and he immediately turned back to his controls. Obviously he didn't have time to deal with Dendr's antics while the ship was in the air at the same time.
The comms console beeped again. Dendr saw another incoming transmission. Minister Greene was still shouting over the connection, but he switched over to the other channel remorselessly.
"Hello, Pizza Express." He half-turned to the rest of the crew. "These are often spam calls. You need to filter these things."
"This is the mayor of Salbarii. I need the High and Dry."
"This is the High and Dry." Denrdr replied.
"This is the mayor of Salbari." the man on the other side repeated himself. He sounded very stressed. "We have reports of activity at the volcano. Can you give me an update?"
"We can confirm gas clouds." Dendr evaded the question. He never mentioned the lava, even though the south-west side of the volcano was still spewing large quantities of lava at an alarming rate.
"We can send vehicles to evacuate people from their homesteads, but I need to know where to send them. I need data! What does the data say?"
Moira interrupted before Dendr could answer. "We were contracted by minister Greene. Perhaps we need to communicate this to him as he's our employer."
Dendr nodded and turned back to the comms panel. "You need to contact Alan Greene, the minister for Offworld Affairs, Public Relations, and Fisheries at Central Lake."
"No, what YOU need to do is help me get the first responders to where they are needed!" the voice of the mayor of Salbarii shouted from the comms panel speaker. "Do a fly-by around the area and share a feed of what you see, can you do that?!"
At Moira's nod and the subsequent change in course, Dendr replied: "Yes, we can fucking do that!"
Dendr tapped various buttons on the comms panel, making sure to broadcast their camera feed and sending the computer readouts of the volcano's activity to the interested parties. Sensor data mapping the area rolled over the screens.
Inside the crater there was only a small amount of lava, but there was a major eruption much lower down. That part of the mountain had collapsed, and a wide stream of lava flowed down to the southwest. As the ship gained altitude, they could see the lava was headed down towards the coast, and in its path they could see several settlements.
"I will direct a grav train to Barvinn." the voice of the mayor of Salbarii came over the radio. "The people on the edge of the coast are too far out, they won't make it to the train in time. I need your help to evacuate them. Can you be of assistance?"
Read the next entry in this campaign.
Read the first entry in this campaign.
From where they were standing at least the descent seemed easier than climbing up the side of the volcano. As far as they could tell there was nothing living on the volcano that could have made a path down to the lake, so they would have to do without one. On the plus side, the inside of the volcano looked smoother and more polished than its rocky outside and they also didn't need to go down as far as they had just climbed up; the lake was certainly no more than 800 metres below them. There were shrubs and bushes, roughly waist-high for the humans and about shoulder-high for Parappa. Some lava tubes jutting out from the rock wall where in the active past of the volcano lava had spewed out were a silent testimony of a violent past.
"Well, we've come this far. It seems a shame to go back." Moira said, her voice light.
Shifting the weight of the flight case of spare parts he was carrying, Qupar was the first to move. He started picking his way down carefully, leaving the rest at the crest of the crater.
"Might as well." Myles replied drily, and he started to follow Qupar down.
The walk down to the lake took them about twenty minutes, and as they arrived at the shore Qupar set down the flight case, reached over his head and pulled his shirt off over his head. His trousers were next.
"I like you man, but not in that way." Hasta laughed.
Parappa followed suit, already shrugging off his caftan and even Moira stripped down to her underwear.
"I don't think we should all swim at the same time." Hasta remarked. He wasn't taking off any of his clothes yet, fidgeting with the hatchet and the knife clipped to his belt. His scowl swept over the lake, the island and their surroundings, almost inviting something, anything, to make his day more interesting and fun.
Qupar stuffed his clothes in the flight case. It was a tight fit, but if any water were to get in the flight case perhaps the clothes would absorb any moisture before the more delicate electronics could be damaged. He lifted the flight case over his head and started walking into the lake. He made sure to tread carefully so as not to fall and it was slow going, but even halfway into the lake the water would reach no higher than his chest.
Myles and Moira were still at the shore, a flight case between them. They carefully tested whether the case would float by lowering it slowly into the water. It seemed to dip a bit, but the box wasn't heavy enough to fully submerge. It was a comforting thought that the invaluable equipment inside could at least not sink to the bottom.
"I'm not attached to the tents." Moira said to the rest of the group.
Qupar turned around to face them. "Myles might want to give them to the needy."
"We can always fly up and pick them up later if need be." Myles retorted. "We'll only need them if we need to make camp."
From his perch on the shore, Hasta surveyed the ship. It was triangle-shaped, its nose a sharp point jutting out near the edge of the lake. The rear was a wide bulk, with twin engines at the back. The ship was thicker in the middle, tapering down to the sides only emphasising the triangle shape. On the starboard side of the ship a small airlock would allow passengers and crew to enter and exit the ship, and up top was a small cupola with a double laser gun turret that would allow a handy gunner to defend the ship from any enemies.
Hasta suddenly perked up, pointing excitedly at the laser turrets. "Boom, let's go then!" Apparently his enthusiasm for guns included ship’s weaponry as well. The mere thought at getting acquainted with the gun turret seemed to spur him on. Still, he stayed in place while the rest crossed over to the island, watching their backs and making sure nothing would jump out and attack them.
It took them about five minutes to cross, Parappa swimming lazily and quite contentedly in the murky water. He seemed to be enjoying the bath more than the others and was only a little dismayed that there was no mud to lounge in. As soon as they reached the island Hasta also made the crossing while the rest of them were putting their clothes back on.
The island was littered with a ton of rubbish and the hull of the scout ship was marked with some scorch blasts and scratches, but Moira judged it to be nothing serious. The immediate surroundings looked like someone methodically dumped out the entire contents of the ship in no particular order. There were boxes, crates, ripped wrappers of rations and bags littered on the whole island between the bushes and shrubs that grew there. As the rest moved towards the airlock, something caught Qupar's eye. Between the wrappers and other assorted litter he bent over to pick up a small metal bowl. On the side was stamped the name 'Kimbley'. It looked a little bit like a feeding bowl of some kind. With a grunt, Qupar tossed it back into the pile of rubbish where he found it and he joined the others at the airlock.
Major Casarii had provided them with the seven digit access code for the High and Dry and the keypad at the airlock accepted it. The doors, however, did not. Groaning loudly, they opened a little bit and then got stuck. Moira tried to open them by herself, and Qupar nudged Myles to give Hasta a hand. Together they opened the door and they made their way into the High and Dry. They found themselves in a narrow hallway, with doors on either side.
"This is a trap." Hasta said nervously. "Probably a dog will jump out and make us all freak out, and then I'd have to kill it."
"Its name is Kimbley;" Qupar motioned over his shoulder vaguely, but didn't explain further. He grabbed his knife and was ready to start clearing rooms.
"Do the bridge first." Hasta said. "Let Moira do her magic there while we clear the rest of the ship."
The interior of the ship was a mess, even worse than the outside. Wall panels and access panels were all open. There were wires dangling out of most of them and stuff had been connected haphazardly as if the former crew had to bypass or jury-rig things. As much as the island looked like they systematically cleared out the ship, the inside looked like someone took the time to take it apart piece by piece looking for valuable things. The place was ransacked. The only lights that were working were the emergency lights and there were obvious problems with the power supply. It looked like the ship was going to need a lot of work just to get it back together and in a working state.
Qupar checked for a medical bay on board, but there was only a ship's locker. To his surprise there were still some basic medical supplies stored in it. Not something he would leave behind if he would abandon ship to trek up a mountain, but then who could tell how the previous crew thought.
Thirty minutes later, they met up at the bridge and share their thoughts
"No further damage than initially stated." Moira said, sounding hopeful. "We have the parts so we can replace and repair as expected."
"The power is down, batteries drained. We'll need to cycle up the reactors at some point to get them charged again." Parappa ticked off on his fingers. "We'll have to check all these major systems and fix them, so.... Flight controls, that's Hasta's job, check them and get them back operational. General electronics that have been pulled, chips that need to be reset in the proper housing, that's you, Dendr and Qupar, all over the ship please. Myles can check on the power systems and reroute where needed. And I'll work on the drive systems."
As night fell outside, the first part of the work was pretty much done. Most of the circuits were back in their proper slots and although the deck was still a mess of litter and rubbish, the ship might be ready for some tests in the morning. Hasta was still purging the computer in the bridge, downloading a new OS and setting up the security protocols. Qupar was looking for some air filters to replace, finally tracing around the exterior of the ship after checking the piles of abandoned things inside. The air would get stale in space without proper filters, and even old second-hand filters would be much better than none at all. He half remembered seeing something like that when he made his first recon trip around the ship that morning.
The small bushes near the ship rustled. For a moment, Qupar couldn't decide if it was just the wind making the leaves shake, but as the wind died down for a moment, the rustling returned.
He carefully turned towards the noise, removing the wrapper from the ration bar he was eating. The rustling continued, and Qupar called out to it softly. "You want to come out here?"
There was no reply. "Come here then." he tried again, holding out the ration bar towards the noise.
A shape slowly edged towards him. When he could finally make out the details, it was a creature with sleek brown fur that stood about knee-high. It had four paws and a longer, black mane running from the back of the neck over its spine to the tail. Its face sported narrow lips that seemed pulled back over the huge fangs protruding out towards Qupar and its ears laid flat towards the back of the head, making for an aerodynamic look that would frighten off any intruders.
It seemed scared and hungry.
"Myles? Come out here for a sec." Qupar called back to the ship. As Myles came towards him, Qupar said; "I think I found Kimbley."
The creature still didn't approach Qupar, and eyed Myles warily. Its eyes soon flicked back to the ration bar.
Qupar threw the ration to the shore, a little way away from them to the side of the creature, where it bounded to grab and eat it.
"Myles, do you think Hasta wants a puppy?" Qupar asked.
"I don't think he's responsible enough." Myles laughed. "Are we going to keep it?"
"Only if you clean up after it." Qupar said. "I think it's a Tenser's Wolf. I don't think it's native to the Spinward Marches but I've seen people keep them as guard dogs." He shuddered at the memory. He'd had several run-ins with creatures on guard, but Kimbley seemed reasonably harmless, or at least it did for now. "It seems to know its name, Kimbley."
As soon as Parappa met Kimbley it was clear the creature had made its choice. It started following Parappa around faithfully, not letting him out of its sight.
Moira was struggling with trying to access the ship's logs, but they seemed to be encrypted.
"Flammarion." Moira sighed. "Something doesn't fit for me. The mere fact that Major Casarii needed to hire outside help to retrieve the ship. The fact that he had to smuggle us out under armed guard, disguised as prisoners. I'd really like to learn what is in these logs." She banged the panel in frustration but it didn't help her case.
"Something’s fishy." Hasta agreed. "I'll take a look at those files."
Whatever he tried, the files rebuked them both. Their contents were protected by what seemed to be military-grade encryption. They plugged in a portable computer to run a more specialised decryption program, but there was no way to gain access to the files' content. In the end they copied them in full to the portable computer so they would still have access after returning the ship to Scout Services.
The next day was spent on more repairs to get the ship fully operational again. It was a long day of tedious work in messy surroundings. Nobody seemed particularly bothered to start clearing away the rubbish but at least Kimbley didn't make it any worse than it was. They turned in early, because on the morning of 025-1104 they planned to do a shake-down test.
Moira took her place at the controls on the bridge, Parappa by her side. The others were strapped in securely in their places, even Kimbley in a crate tied down near Parappa's seat to make sure it couldn’t slide around on the deck plating during manoeuvres.
There were a few bangs as the engine tried to power up but they soon levelled out to a nice hum. The control panels in front of Moira showed mostly green lights. She checked them quickly and glanced over to her co-pilot, Parappa. On his consoles a few lights were blinking orange, but Parappa whacked a panel near him and the lights changed to green lights, no longer blinking. Parappa turned to Moira and gave her an encouraging nod.
Taking the controls firmly in hand Moira let the scout ship take off on thrusters. There was a slight drift to the left, as if something wasn't calibrated properly, but it seemed to her that it wasn't something they could fix then and there. Behind them, a console threw a couple of sparks as if to emphasise the sketchiness of their repairs.
"We'll have to make a new List for this one." Moira murmured mostly to herself. "If it's important we'll fix the sparks later."
She tugged on the controls and the scout ship touched down again on the island with a little bump. Moira rotated her seat to look at Hasta, in the chair next to Qupar, out of the way. "Would you like to give the turret a test-firing, Hasta?"
"I would." Hasta bounced out of his seat and almost flew up the steps to the gunner's cupola up top. He fired off a couple of cheeky laser shots and reported in. "Not a lot of power, but it seems to work."
Moira landed the ship as a final part of the initial test, and they agreed to get to work on the geological survey for Minister Greene. His instructions for the scans had been extensive and they knew what was expected from them. In the heap of things littered around the cargo bay six seismic charges were found, and Moira and Parappa piloted the ship to six spots on the inside of the crater to plant the charges in a rough hexagon shape around the lake. The charges would create a low-level seismic shock and broadcast their findings to the ship's computer. For optimal results, they should be roughly in the centre between the charges, so Moira landed the ship back on the island and prepared to read out the computer's analysis.
It would take several hours for the computer to analyse the findings, so they settle in to wait. To pass the time Moira fiddled with the ship some more.
"Fuel status is good, but the jump drive seems to be blinking an error. We need to set down at a star port to calibrate." she reported.
A slight tremor ran through the ship.
"Was that a ship tremor or a planet tremor?" Dendr asked.
Parappa pulled up some visuals on his screen. Outside the ship, inside the crater of the volcano there are plumes of gas and dust, and in the lake some air bubbles seemed to be rising to the surface. The crew nervously kept an eye on their surroundings, flicking through the views of the outside cameras, but after a little while everything calmed down again.
The computer readout confirmed that the volcano was not likely to erupt any time soon and it was just a tremor. At that, the crew visibly relaxed and Qupar released his death-grip on the panel next to him. An urgent beep from the computer made his vice grip return instantly. A warning that popped up on screen read that the eruption predicted in six months' time has had its schedule pulled back to T-minus six minutes. And counting.
"Let's get the hell away from here!" Hasta shouted.
Moira and Parappa revved the engines and the High and Dry bolted into the air, still tilting slightly to the left. It took Moira a moment to compensate, and they circled the crater for a hot minute to check the state of the volcano.
On the monitors they could see the bubbles in the lake had disappeared and the lake was draining. Plumes of steam rose from several fissures, and as Qupar browsed the exterior camera images he could see the southwestern outside of the crater was spewing lava.
The next computer started beeping, adding to the cacophony of warnings. This one was next to Dendr, beeping that there was an incoming transmission. He glanced around the bridge, and then accepted the connection.
"Come in High and Dry! Come in!" an urgent voice shouted from the speakers on the comm panel.
"Hello, Pizza Express." Dendr said cheerfully.
"Pizza Express? I need the High and Dry! Who is this? Get off this frequency, this is urgent. Calling High and Dry, come in High and Dry!"
"Hello High and Dry." Dendr quipped in the same sing-song voice.
"This is Minister Greene, first minister for Offworld Affairs, Public Relations, and Fisheries."
"You need a shorter title." Dendr replied drily.
"What's going on!?" the minister sounded panicked. "We have data coming in about trouble with the volcano. What's going on up there?"
"You have about six minutes to live." Dendr replied earnestly. "I suggest you find a place to pray. There is bound to be a place of worship near your position you can visit."
"What do you mean? Tell me what's going on up there!"
"Please hold." Dendr replied. He pulled up the external camera angle. "Visibility is crap, there seems to be a lot of smoke up here, and I can't really see."
"I need to make an assessment. I need that data right now! I have people to report to!"
The minister's panic didn't seem to affect Dendr in the least but Parappa glanced over his shoulder at Dendr, looking very uncomfortable with how the ex-journalist was handling things. The ship lurched suddenly and he immediately turned back to his controls. Obviously he didn't have time to deal with Dendr's antics while the ship was in the air at the same time.
The comms console beeped again. Dendr saw another incoming transmission. Minister Greene was still shouting over the connection, but he switched over to the other channel remorselessly.
"Hello, Pizza Express." He half-turned to the rest of the crew. "These are often spam calls. You need to filter these things."
"This is the mayor of Salbarii. I need the High and Dry."
"This is the High and Dry." Denrdr replied.
"This is the mayor of Salbari." the man on the other side repeated himself. He sounded very stressed. "We have reports of activity at the volcano. Can you give me an update?"
"We can confirm gas clouds." Dendr evaded the question. He never mentioned the lava, even though the south-west side of the volcano was still spewing large quantities of lava at an alarming rate.
"We can send vehicles to evacuate people from their homesteads, but I need to know where to send them. I need data! What does the data say?"
Moira interrupted before Dendr could answer. "We were contracted by minister Greene. Perhaps we need to communicate this to him as he's our employer."
Dendr nodded and turned back to the comms panel. "You need to contact Alan Greene, the minister for Offworld Affairs, Public Relations, and Fisheries at Central Lake."
"No, what YOU need to do is help me get the first responders to where they are needed!" the voice of the mayor of Salbarii shouted from the comms panel speaker. "Do a fly-by around the area and share a feed of what you see, can you do that?!"
At Moira's nod and the subsequent change in course, Dendr replied: "Yes, we can fucking do that!"
Dendr tapped various buttons on the comms panel, making sure to broadcast their camera feed and sending the computer readouts of the volcano's activity to the interested parties. Sensor data mapping the area rolled over the screens.
Inside the crater there was only a small amount of lava, but there was a major eruption much lower down. That part of the mountain had collapsed, and a wide stream of lava flowed down to the southwest. As the ship gained altitude, they could see the lava was headed down towards the coast, and in its path they could see several settlements.
"I will direct a grav train to Barvinn." the voice of the mayor of Salbarii came over the radio. "The people on the edge of the coast are too far out, they won't make it to the train in time. I need your help to evacuate them. Can you be of assistance?"
Read the next entry in this campaign.
Read the first entry in this campaign.
