On Saturday, July 17, 2004, at 06:24  PM, Eris Reddoch wrote:

> Bruce Johnson wrote:
>
>>> Ricardo changes course and flies the /Mae Lee/ toward the apparent
>>> derelict. As the distance decreases, an image begins to develop on
>>> the large screen at the front of the bridge, and on the screens
>>> around the ship that are tied to that screen.
>>>
>>> Floating against the blackness of space and illuminated by the red
>>> light of the M4 companion sun you see a small ship in the shape of
>>> a triangular arrowhead. The ship is slowly tumbling and as it does
>>> you see all sides. There is no visible external damage, but there
>>> is also nothing to indicate it is anything but a dead ship. You
>>> don't see any writing or markings on the ship's surface from the
>>> images you are getting, if there are any, they are too small to be
>>> picked up at this distance.
>>
>>  "Thats a Charlie...whatinthehell is it doing out here?" He looks at
>>  it silently a moment. "Oh crap, I bet it's a misjump." He punches his
>>  comm "Mira, it's a Charlotte class scout... I don't remember any
>>  more, did they have lowrides in them?"
>
> Mira remembers that, yes the Charlottes do have emergency lowberths in
> them, usually the standard one that can hold up to four people.
>
>>  He says "Arvitis, is that enough of an energy sig for a low berth? If
>>  it is, there might be someone alive on that thing, and in that
>>  orbit, they're not coming back for a long time..."
>
> Arvitis nods and says, "I don't know exactly how much you'd need for
> that, so I don't know. Maybe."
>
>>> The /Mae Lee/ will sweep past this derelict ship at several hundred
>>> kilometers per second, and the real vectors of the two ships don't
>>> match either. It will take about forty minutes burning the Heplar
>>> drive to match vectors with the derelict if you choose to do that.
>>
>>  What's our fuel load? Is this a two hours out of our way thing or two
>>  days out of our way?
>
> Two or three hours, not days. 

Ricardo announces "All right folks. we're gonna match up to her and see 
what's up with her. If she did misjump there might be someone still 
alive in low berth. If not, we can put a salvage claim on it."

"Cory, get on the horn to Serbia control, send them some pictures of 
it, and tell them we're matching vectors and are investigating, no, say 
'attempting a rescue or recovery.' Lets not give them anything too 
concrete about exactly where it is; if we have to come back for it, I 
want just us to be able to find it..salvage tends to be a possession is 
9/10'ths kind of thing."

"Arvitis, get as much data on the thing as you can. I want to know 
*where* on that ship the enerygy is coming from and as much detail on 
the surface as possible. We should be able to get some decent 
integration time as I match vectors.

"Lysia, Mira, stay on the guns until we get there. Then we'll have 
 take over. Lysia, you take Zeek and..." 
he thinks a moment "Illane over with Mira as a boarding party. Hows 
Ukanav in zero gee? Has he ever? If so, take him too."

"Kelly, we have any way of securing this thing? Hell. We could pull 
what Akus did to Ollies dad and just swallow her if we have the 
space.." (I don't know what we have in terms of a loading right now. We 
couldn't fit it on the hangar deck, could we? Someone could fly the 
Walk on in from here. Take a while, though..) "If not we're gonna have 
to plant a beacon on her...be nice if we could make it a keyed one. See 
if we've got something, or if you can whip one up."

He looks over at Shawm. Well, one of us should go over too. Rock Paper 
Scissors, winner gets to choose. "

(Terry, send Eris three choices, in case of ties...)

--
"Wherever you go, there you are." - B. Banzai, Ph.D.
Bruce Johnson