ataraxionlogs | ARRIVAL ▒ 006

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness. Gore and violence.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps again, while the camp is beseiged by bloodthirsty monsters.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post. This post is also a plot 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 Tranquility sirens have been wailing since daybreak, heralding a jump, but they don't command the same attention as usual. The air tastes smokey and there are fire-glows blossoming up from the tree line in the southern portion of the jungle, but there's a more immediate problem to contend with. Jungle creatures come barrelling from the tree line, making bad, frenzied dashes across the expansive crash path, directly for basecamp. Shrieks, growls, and the thump of bodies and scrape of claws against wood and metal, all connote the besiegement that those on the ground can't clearly see.

A monster, bigger than a black bear, with jagged bony growths breaking through its skin, slams its paws into wooden walls, where overgrown claws strip splinters from them, shaking them, testing their strength. It leaps, snapping, blood spatter from its open maw painting ruined wood. An animal that looks like a cross between a heron and some kind of feline, scrambles up into the trees, and launches itself down onto an unsuspecting crewmember, who screams as tooth and claw slice through his clothing, flesh, muscle. A horse-like creature with a bony head slams itself recklessly into the wall, pieces of wood shattering, provoking cries of alarm from the people within.

And on and on.

The initial wave eventually dies off, but the animals persist, and so do the fires in the distance. Those brave enough and capable enough might investigate and put a stop to it themselves, and perhaps gain an idea as to how they began. Those that stay behind have the arduous task of defending the camp, dealing with the swiftly rotting corpses of infested jungle animals, and fortifying the camp.

It's ten hours later when the jump happens, sneaking up on those preoccupied with the current crisis. There's a tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, and 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.

Most of the crew and the passengers are unaffected, but some experience a moment of unbalance, the world going black at the edges, and a sudden trickle of blood running from both nostrils, or bursting the fine veins in the eyes to make annoying red splotches on white. The moment passes, and the immediate nausea subsides. There is still work to do be.

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 claustrophobic 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 to air that smells smokey and a little gory, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realise you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above, visible as the sky begins to darken. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle is a campsite, surrounded by walls, and seemingly beseiged by sporadic attacks of monster.

Hopefully, someone will think to come and help you. Otherwise, you best be ready to run.

N O T E S
Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreparably 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 scattered beyond the ship. Feel free to find all of your inventory items, or lose as many as you like, as they will be randomly distributed around the jump radius. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage of medical.
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.
As mentioned, some characters will be affected by dizziness, nausea, and nosebleeds/eyebleeds for a moment. This will only apply to characters who are at ability grid levels three through six. Everyone else remains unaffected.
This arrival log doubles as a plot log. Please feel free to be attacked by and kill as many monsters as you like. Breaches to the wall will occur, but the camp will not be completely overrun only thanks to the combined efforts of passengers and crewmembers.
Those investigating the fires should mark it clearly in their subject header, and if you are touched by a GM/NPC tag, please feel free to continue to tag in whatever order.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"People have been dragged here by jumps for four years now. We've examined anything we had the opportunity to. Some of the more technically minded people have even worked on repairs, even though we never were able to actually work out repairs." He can get her a list of those who are still around, if need be. A lot of them are gone by now, but some still linger.

"We were only able to trigger the jump ourselves once. It cost us three lives and..." He gestures back toward the wreck, hidden by the camp's walls. "Here we are."

That seals it: they definitely don't know how to program a hyperdrive jump. Rey ponders for a moment, and then nods resolutely to herself. "We'll just have to fix it, then." That seems like a simple solution to her. Fixing things has always come naturally to her, and as reluctant as she is to ask anyone else for help, "technically minded people" did sound useful.

"Unfortunately, most of the vital systems have been reduced to scrap metal. And that's in the portions we even still have access to. The wreckage you woke up in is only a small portion." It's hard to say if it was the crash or their rather inexpert jump that actually caused Tranquility to come apart. Since they're unlikely to be repeating the process any time soon, the point is somewhat moot anyway.

It's a daunting task, to be sure, but Rey has never been put out by that before. She nods in agreement, and finally switches off the lightsaber and hooks it to her belt. "I'll have to take a look, then." She's been here less than twelve hours, and she's already planning an expedition into the ship.

"You have mechanical skills as well as the Force, then." People didn't tend to take it on themselves to repair entire city sized vessels by themselves if they didn't have something to back it up, in his experience. And standard Jedi training didn't go that far.

When he mentions the Force, Rey does a doubletake. Her hackles rise, and her muscles coil, ready to spring or flee. "What do you mean?" Playing dumb seems the safe route right now. It hasn't occurred to her yet that holding a lightsaber, the chosen weapon of the most Force-sensitive beings in the universe, would clue him in. All she considers is that he may know who she is, where she's from, and who she's after. None of those things would be good for her.

"You're comfortable enough to use a lightsaber in combat. Generally that means having the Force." There's a reason he was shooting a blaster while leaving the lightsaber secured at his hip. In his hands, it was really only useful as a machete.

But more explanations are no doubt in order. She doesn't take it as a given that anyone wielding a lightsaber is a Jedi. That means she's from a time when that wasn't necessarily the case. "I've worked quite closely with the Jedi."

Her suspicion falters for a moment. He's right, that would be the obvious assumption. She can't say how comfortable she is with the weapon, but the stories of Jedi had always included them with lightsabers. But the uncertainty rears its ugly head once more at his second comment. He's worked with the Jedi? But they'd all been wiped out years ago, and he doesn't look old enough to her for that. Or she's just really bad at judging age.

Not for the first time, Rey says what is on her mind before thinking about what she's saying. "You were in the War?"

"THis is the part where it gets very strange." He's fully prepared for her to think he's crazy. People often do. SHe didn't recognize him and immediately begin making the Alderaan Face, so it might be a harder sell.

"On top of all the other strange things about the jump drive, it doesn't always bring people from the same time. I'm Bail Organa. I worked with the Jedi during the Clone Wars."

That definitely sends a shock through her system. The Clone Wars? He can't be serious. "You can't be serious." Taking people from different times was a realm of possibility she'd never considered. How could it even be possible?

"I realize it sounds absurd." That's because it is completely absurd. And the timelines always seem particularly muddled with people from their universe, for whatever reason.

"I've had countless people trying to avoid mentioning that they expect me to be dead." He is prepared to hear that from her, too.

Shock takes over her face, and she stares at him, open-mouthed. He's expected to be dead? Well, she supposes that if he's from... the past, that would make sense. But then how can he be here? It makes her head hurt just trying to think about it. "That... must be unsettling." To say the least, she thinks.

"For everyone involved, yes. Especially since it involves Alderaan." If she's from the future, that should say it all. ANd he's fairly certain she must be. There's not a period that has so few Jedi otherwise.

Rey cannot school her face into her usual neutral expression. "Alderaan?" The name of the disintegrated planet sticks in her throat. "You're... you were on Alderaan?"

"Or will be. Time is complicated." He's known it for long enough that he can say it with relative calm. But inside, the thought still horrifies him. He tries not to contemplate it too much. The whole idea is simply too enormous.

"I know Leia wouldn't be able to lie to me about something like that." Really, she couldn't lie to him at all. But there's no way she could have concealed something that important.

ARRIVAL ▒ 006

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