ARRIVAL ▒ 001

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps for the first time since crashing.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post.

T H E   C A M P   ( C U R R E N T   C H A R A C T E R S ) The sun is low in the morning sky when the alarms start. Wailing through the air, they bring with them a sudden silence; activity around the ramshackle camp of shelters and tents falling still, faces turning towards the ship. Listening. The realisation makes the moment hang, stretching. In reality it only lasts a breath. Movement starts at a single point, spreading outward rapidly - those of the Tranquility's original crew turning to salvaged equipment, gathered supplies, the small shelters they've constructed. Building the camp has taken weeks, and in comparison dissembling it is insultingly easy. There's fear in the speed they work at, but efficiency, certain items prioritized over others: what can be carried, what they cannot afford to leave. "Pack up everything you can, quickly," Any of the crew say, vehement, if they catch you with idle hands. "We're too close. We have to get away from the ship." It's an evacuation, and already many of them are setting out, taking the path carved out of the ground by the Tranquility's crash as fast as they're able to walk, supplies and equipment and the makings of what shelters could be pulled down strapped to backs and carried in arms. They don't stop. They don't look back. It's ten hours later when it happens. A tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, sending the jungle's wildlife into distressed flocks of movement and alarmed cries. Under the high sun the wreck of the Tranquility begins to cord with lines of white light, threading across the hull like veins, some patches remaining dark, standing out against the vision like splotches burnt to the back of the eyelids. There's no great sound. In an instant, the ship is gone, a soft whomp, a feeling of air rushing past, the trees bending towards the site as if blown by a fierce wind. It's only a second. With a crack, the wreck returns, a rumble rolling through the air like thunder. The earth shakes. The trees tremble. The ship groans, the sound echoing out like the cry of a wounded beast. The jump has passed. But what did it bring with it? M E D I C A L   ( N E W   A R R I V A L S ) You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. The impact is painful, winds you, and it takes several seconds to overcome and persuade uncooperative limbs to move. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, close and claustrophic in the wreckage of the medical bay you've awoken in, lit dim and red. Around you, others are waking up, falling from other gravcouches, stumbling to their feet. Light catches your eye, and you look up to see a huge rend in the outer wall high above you, overhung by broken structural beams and damaged cabling. Climbing up takes all the strength you have. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle are a clustered crowd of figures, moving towards the wreck. Your welcome party, but are they friend or foe? N O T E S The crew will not fight any player characters to make them leave, but will be very insistent that they can't stay. Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreperably damaged. Soft organics will be pulverised, while all trees and plants will initially appear fine but crumble to pieces within a day (or sooner if disturbed). Non-organic material will also be weakened, bending or falling apart when touched. Newly arriving characters venturing through the medbay will discover their inventory items somewhere in the heavily damaged locker banks. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage. The alarms will cut after two hours, a which point a looping audio message telling passengers to make their way to the blue lifts will be audible. The lifts, if investigated, will be missing, leaving only empty elevator shafts. The wreck will show increased signs of instability for a few days after the jump, and will have seemed to have sunk further into the rock of the cliff than it was before. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Comments

OUtside

[bailedontheempire]

[The chaos of the evacuation has left Bail looking a bit more than a little dissheveled. He'll clean up later. He has other priorities now.]

I'm afraid we don't have a clear answer to that. I'm fairly certain we didn't intend to end up on this planet.

[benumbing]

Where exactly were we meant to end up?

[The man doesn't have an answer to his question, but he seems to know more about their current situation than Jack does.]

How did you take me from my rooms?

[That's more curiosity than complaint. He might be on an unknown, possibly hostile planet with strangers whose intentions he knows nothing of. But what Jack left behind feels worse.]

[bailedontheempire]

I would guess that most of us were meant to never end up on that ship at all. Something about the jump drive pulls people out of their own worlds seemingly at random.

[Bail glances at the trail of destruction]

We hadn't expected it to keep working after the crash.

[benumbing]

[He's not so sure about the randomness of it, but he's equally unsure of if it was for good or ill that he was taken from his world. Maybe with some time here, he'll have his answer.]

How long ago did you crash?

[bailedontheempire]

About a month. Before the crash, the jumps happened this often without any input from us.

[He shakes his head. He should be clear]

Not for lack of trying.

[benumbing]

Well at least something's still functional.

[the smile that Jack offers is bitter, but it is something of a miracle considering the wrecked ship. This must be his butterfly crown.]

How many survivors are there? How many have you lost in the past month?

[bailedontheempire]

About a hundred passengers drawn from other worlds, plus three hundred of the original crew. We don't know much about them, they weren't around when we were on the ship.

[He's not clear on when they became active. The trouble with no one remembering the last two days before the ship.]

No confirmed deaths, but a half dozen mysterious disappearances. It's possible that we simply never found their bodies, but we can't rule out it being something strange linked to the ship.

[They never can. Laura was a friend and he did wish he knew what had become of her.]

[benumbing]

[Half a dozen deaths, then. Jack looks around at the jungle that stretches in every direction, hostile terrain for anyone, much less those who don't have any experience with it in their first days. He doesn't think it's the ship.

He sighs and looks down.]

What do we know about this planet? [We, because Jack's one of them now. He glances back up at the man.] My name's Jack Benjamin. I may be able to help.

[bailedontheempire]

[Wanting to help. That's a start.]

Bail Organa.

[He holds out a hand before continuing what is probably best described as a briefing.]

Tropical climate. We haven't been on world long enough to have a feel for seasons. Sometimes we get extended periods of rain. The river is acidic, but the rain mercifully isn't. It gives us one source of fresh water.

[That isn't dependent on individual superpowers]

We've been able to determine some of the local plants and animals are edible.

[benumbing]

[Jack shakes his hand, absorbing all the information that the man gives him.]

I've been trained by the best of my military, survival skills included. [One of the benefits of being a prince. They've come in handy before, but Jack's pretty sure he'll be using them for long this time.] We can't leave ourselves to just the mercy of the rain. We must find another source.

[bailedontheempire]

Very useful.

Purifying the river water is one option, though with such high acidity that may be easier said than done unless we can recover appropriate equipment from the ship. The other major option is looking for an alternate search in the jungle.

[He's got some training on that front too really]

[benumbing]

A small team could be formed. I would volunteer. [Because Jack knows that you don't gain respect by just sitting around. Nothing is just handed to you.] Maybe the animals could lead us to another source deeper in.

[Unless they can drink the acidic water. If not, he doesn't believe they're surviving on rainfall alone.]