James' head poked from the cockpit hatch of his Y2000 fighter, blaster drawn. He pressed his communicator and hailed Cassidy, "I just saw it Robert, I'm guessing everyone in about an AU of this place did." He hopped from his cockpit, holstered his weapon, and trotted across the hangar bay to the forcefield guarding the port side of the bay from the vaccum of space.

The wrecked ship had materialized a couple kilometers to the port of the Ages. James observed it, taking in the details as he tapped his comlink again, "Your voice isn't tense for many things Robert...I'll meet you at hangar bay door 2." With that he turned and jogged over to the door as Cassidy was stepping out.

---

"SATAAAAAAAAN!!!" --Alex

30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest like peanut butter; except grandma. She drives a Buick.

"No, I'm quite capable of dressing myself...where's my pants?"

"Quickly, we need to claim that ship before someone else gets their mitts on it." He said as he ran past James towards his ship, oddly enough he did not say sir or captain or salute or any of the other quirks about him that betrays his military background.

At his approach Dortmunder's hatch slide open, Cassidy easily vaulted up the ladder and into the cockpit. As the cockpit slide shut he whispered to himself, "This may not redeem me but it's a start."

The cockpit of Dortmunder was completely bare, there was nothing but a seat and a cable with a long metal plug at the end; there wasn't even a window, it was all sleek reflective black armor. Cassidy snatched up the cord and slid the long metal plug into a jack in the side of his head at the temple, there was a click and Cassidy went limp the safety harness.

The ship hummed to life.

(EDIT OOC: Damn! I hadn't realized how long that got. Just started typing and BAM!)

Zapps sat at his station, notating all of the damaged systems, listing all the new parts he was going to need, and tallying up how much it was all going to cost. He worked at his datapad using a metallic stylus; he had always preferred using a stylus that at least simulated writing, rather than typing. Slider on the other hand, wasn't too fond of the stylus, since was pointy and Zapps could get quite worked up some of the time, much like he was now. Fortunately for Slider, he wasn't in the cockpit at the moment. Saundaharr jabbed at his datapad with the writing utensil with rather forced gestures, as he notated that all three aft repulsors would need new induction coils, assuming they survived trying to land Star Duster on the current three barely functional ones.

   Looking up from his pad, Saundaharr noticed that the sensor readouts seemed to indicate a status of misalignment. Setting the pad down on the control panel, he leaned over and began typing at the interface, attempting to see if he could correct the problem. Sure enough, once he had run the realignment protocols and had accounted for the reflective distortion common with hyperspace travel, the sensors came back online. The new readouts indicated that the Stardust would be arriving at Yuroi IV in ten minutes. I wonder what that bag of fur has been up to in the hold. Just then there was a low level pulse of light, almost undetectable to even Saundaharr's keen eyes, and then a gentle shudder of the ship. Not enough to shake anything, but a definitely perceptible quiver. Now what was that? Zapps looked around the cockpit as if expecting to see the answer to his silent question just leap out at him. Glancing at his instruments he noticed that navigational sensors once again indicated a misalignment, but the diagnostics read out still showed no problems. Whatever it was, it was damned odd, and Saundaharr wasn't about to take any chances. Tapping a switch on the newly straightened comm panel, he hailed for JakTorr, "Hey Slider. I think you need get to front. Something odd with sensors, I want you see..." His words were cut short as a tremendously bright pulse of light filled the cabin, and the entire ship jumped up and then down, as if had just run over a Tarkellian Moose.

   Back in the aft hold, JakTorr was retightening the last of the multitude of tie-down restraints that held his current cargo in place. The restraints, though made of the latest STSPolymer fibers, were an antiquated means of stellar shipping. Usually he would've just grav-locked the containers into place and not have to worry about the cargo slipping even an inch, even if the entire deck was blasted into space. Unfortunately his current cargo of weapons grade tri-therrine crystals, each one the size of a hover bike, were a little sensitive to excessive energy fluctuations. He'd even installed some minor shielding plates in this bay, on the off chance that they might experience a rougher ride than usual. And Herlick had pretty much seen to that. Man, how am I ever going to get of him? He's been on my tail ever since that run through the Daenar Belt. That was when he felt Star Duster's gentle shift. It wasn't enough to be alarming, but it was enough to get him curious. As JakTorr turned to leave the cargo bay, he heard Saundaharr's voice come over the comm system, and then the system went to static, and Star Duster leapt up and down, tossing him to the floor. OK, now that was definitely not good.

   As JakTorr burst onto the flight deck, he was greeted by a cacophony of alarms, buzzers, and klaxons, all being complimented to a steady stream of Svivren curses. Zapps was actually standing on the engineering station, trying to close the shutoff valve on a coolant conduit that had ruptured. Leaning over him, JakTorr leant his height and weight to the task, and quickly shut the valve, stemming the flow of cool gas from the breach. Zapps turned as Slider hopped over a tool box that had spilled from its storage locker, and plopped himself down into his chair. As he strapped himself in, he glanced over his shoulder. "So what'd you do know Zapps?", he said mockingly with a grin.

   Zapps jumped back off the station and into his chair, and began silencing all the alarms that were displaying across his board. Ignoring the joking nature of the question, he launched into an explanation, or rather his lack of one. "I not sure yet. Scanners detect massive energy distortions throughout hyperspace, then gravimetric surge of enormous magnitude. Navigation is little sketchy, but there no additional damage." JakTorr looked back out his view port. Everything looked alright, and the computer said they were still on course for Yuroi IV. Frowning he glanced at all his systems, trying to find some sign that anything was wrong. Failing to come up with anything, he decided it was just some random phenomenon, and settled back in his chair, to wait for the drop out of hyperspace.

   "Hey Zapps. Once you get all that locked down, don't worry about it, we'll be at the Turoi station in fifteen or so minutes. You can run all the tests you want once we're docked." Glancing back as his navigation controls, he began making preparations to drop back to sub-light speeds. That was when Saundaharr’s voice sounded off behind him, in that concerned way that always made him nervous.

   "What you mean, fifteen minutes?"

   JakTorr turned now to look at the look of puzzlement creeping across Saundaharr's face. "Well, I mean just that. In about fifteen, well, maybe thirteen and half minutes now, we'll be at Yuroi IV. Why?"

   "Because, just before this mess start, I recall time to Yuroi being only ten minutes."

   JakTorr froze at the statement, his brain flashing through all his memories, trying to think if he had experienced this sort of thing before. Or perhaps he had heard of someone who had, but his memories came up empty. Turning forward once more, he quickly tried to hypothesize as to what may have happened. Mechanical failure? Instrumentation error? Undocumented hyperspace phenomenon? He just couldn't wrap his head around it. "Zapps, what if when we were hit by that gravimetric surge you mentioned, it actually managed to push us back some?" Immediately he could hear Saundaharr's hair whisking in the air as he shook his head vigorously.

   "No. Not possible. Gravity surge big and powerful enough do that reduce us to our constituent particles. And the energy surge seemed harmless to our systems. I don't know what going on, but I recommend immediate shutdown of hyperdrive."

   JakTorr glanced at the chronometer again, showing their ETA at ten minutes. Ten minutes in hyperspace was nothing, even if you had a slower than average drive systems, the longest it would take would be about forty minutes. But drop into real space, and suddenly you were looking at weeks of sub-light travel. JakTorr didn't like the idea of spending the next month or two limping to Yuroi IV. "I don't know Zapps, maybe those distortions did something to the hyperdrive. Maybe it slowed us down.

   Again, Saundaharr disagreed. "No. The drive is putting out at constant eighty-six percent. Which is best I manage at moment, but it not drop off any since we escape Herlick." JakTorr began flexing his claws in and out, a nervous habit of his that only appeared when he felt he was running out of options. The chronometer now read nine minutes, but could he trust it. Finally he swiveled to face Saundaharr.

   "What about the chronometers, or other internal ship systems? You said yourself that the navigational array and the scanners weren't agreeing. Couldn't it just be a bad readout?"

   Saundaharr was beginning to lose his patience. "Look, Slider, I don't know what wrong. That why we need to disengage hyperdrive. If our timing off, we need to drop out, and re-plot."

   "But what if the hyperdrive dies on us. We'll be weeks away from Yuroi, our shipment will be ultimately late, and best of all, we don't have rations for much past a week."

   "So what, you rather risk hitting Yuroi gravity shadow. It not as big as planet, but if you plotted close enough to cross axis, it tear us apart." JakTorr turned back to his instruments, and saw six minutes remaining. He hesitated though, for he really didn't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere, especially not with Herlick looking for him. "Slider! Just do it! Drop us out, now!" JakTorr rolled his eyes, muttered under his breath, a pulled the knobs that controlled hyperdrive function into the shutdown position. The space outside whirled and blurred, then streamed out into lines of white, which just as quickly coalesced into individual points of light. Then suddenly, JakTorr saw an enormous vessel suddenly grow until it filled all of his view port, and they were headed right for it.

   "Oh, skaat." Slapping at his control console, throwing the ship’s thrusters into full reverse, Slider pulled the Star Duster up as hard as he could make it. This is gonna be close! The last thing he heard before the roar of the suddenly taxed engines became deafening, was a yelp and a curse as Saundaharr came tumbling out of his chair.

---

"Apparently getting your ass kicked is now part of a complete breakfast." - Roy Greenhilt, Order Of The Stick


- An Answerer of questions, and Questioner of answers.

Although the Starflame had no life to it, the scorch marks and many scrapes on the hull were primarily superficial, implying a take out of the ship and a dumping of it somewhere, but nothing which would account for the sudden appearance of it outside of the station.  Inside, it was similarly dead, although the spacers couldn't see inside at this point, but Tweak's state of unconciousness was something of a direct parallel to the state of the similarly dead ship.  Both were out of commission in their own way, and ironically that was probably what saved them both in the long run; yet as the ship floated about the force fields which had entrapped it, it showed no sign of the life which one would expect from such a recently mobile ship.

Intriguingly, the sensors indicated that the somewhat damaged ship before them was not what it appeared.  It was not only out of place, barely damaged, and something which came out of nowhere; it was also about three years younger than it should be.  The sensors indicated that the ship's internal chronometer was about three years or so off from the correct date, as though the ship itself had been gone or somewhere time didn't affect for those past three years, but no answer was given by the rather silent ship.

As the fighter's approached, the docking area of the ships showed signs of damage, forced entry to the three airlocks which were obvious on the ship, and the other one which was not as easily accessible also appeared to show signs of forced entry.  All signs that the ship had been infiltrated before it came to it's present state - yet no movement, no real crippling damage appeared present on the ship.  In fact, the ship looked near brand new for being a ship whose chronometer hadn't noted the past three years at all.  Yet as the airlocks were secured, the ship itself seemed to buzz to life, the sensors indicating that the engines were still online, and power and life support hadn't gone off - not even affected.  No primary systems disabled, nothing to indicate why such a nice piece of salvage was laying around for the most conniving person to grab it.

The air was fresh inside, fresh enough to not even hint at the fact that the ship had survived three years unscathed, but there was a similarly fresh smell which accompanied it: the smell of blood.  It begged the question of why the ship was there, since it couldn't have been gone for three years, could it?  And how was all of this fresh, when the chronometer gave a reading which stated it hadn't registered the past three years.  All peculiar, and all relatively unexplainable.  Yet the sensors indicated one strange anomoly, a distortion, a bend in the spacetime continuum, and it was generated inside of the engine room.

-----

Tweak groaned, but still lay trapped in the shadow-dream of half-consciousness the concussive force of the fall inflicted upon him.  As Tweak sort of faded in and out of what he knew was about him, he heard the ship change, shift in space, but then blacked out before he could figure out what was going on.  Once again unconcious, Tweak was unaware of what was going on outside of his small locker which he had been fortunately tossed into.

---

"... if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for Destruction Ice is also great
And would suffice."
- Robert Frost

James watched Cassidy sprint away, then casually began walking toward his personal craft, tapping the all-ship communicator, "Pilots, I need five of you down here ready to fly in a minute and a half, your ships will be ready when you get here." With that 5 mechanics ran to separate ships and began final checks and preparations for launch. James continued, "Thad, I'm assuming you saw that ship appear, get the Ages over to her, I want her in escort position, close enough to defend her if need be. And whenever you can, get a tractor beam on her, just keep her in that spot. Pilots, you'll set up a perimeter." Cassidy's hatch slid shut and James walked the remaining few meters to his ship as the Dortmunder lifted off and floated through the forcefield.

The Forgotten Ages began to move as soon as Cassidy's ship was clear. James popped his own hatch and casually slid into his seat, tossing on his glasses and taking up his flight controls. The Luna purred as her engines heated up quickly.

James punched a button and pushed the control stick foreward, the ship's powerful Yamato Drive Systems engines pushed the ship out of the forcefield and into space quickly. Once there, James pushed his flight yolk foreward further and the ship sped up considerably. He tapped a button on his flight yolk and said "Robert". The comm buzzed to life and James spoke calmly to Cassidy, "What's up Robert?" He followed the Dortumnder wherever its course led.

The Forgotten Ages, though confused, followed James' orders quickly, the ship followed slowly behind the Luna and as James finished his comm message 5 fighters exited either side of their home ship, following between James and the Ages.

---

"SATAAAAAAAAN!!!" --Alex

30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest like peanut butter; except grandma. She drives a Buick.

"No, I'm quite capable of dressing myself...where's my pants?"

“Ship in range.” the voice echoed in Cassidy’s mind.

 

“Decloak and fire when ready, we will teach these trespassers to stay out of our space.”

 

The Argantian patrol cruiser came into view then, it wasn’t so much that a ship appeared out of space but that the space itself formed a ship. The stars stretched and slid across the surface of the warship’s glossy black surface unraveled the cloak of light it had wrapped it self in. The innocent occupants of the ship only had a moment to gaze in awe at this technological wonder before two beams of purple light thundered into it slamming through the shields like it was tissue paper.

 

“Prepare a boarding party sergeant, she’s all yours.”

 

“Yes sir…”

 

“What’s up Robert?” the commlink interface echoed in his ship, in his mind.

 

“This is just something I need to do Captain; trust me on this.” Came Cassidy’s reply, it was his voice and yet it sounded different; just as it always did when he spoke through his ship, because it wasn’t actually his voice, it was his mind.

 

Dortmunder moved in swiftly with a precision and grace that was breathtaking to watch, the ship moved effortlessly around the obstacles in his way and slid in next to Starflame with movements so sure that anyone watching would have to swear the ship was alive.

  The Star Duster's nose pulled up sharply, at least as far as the sixty five-year-old freighter was concerned. The Ze'Hethbra pilot, on the other hand, was not completely satisfied with the performance. "Skaat. Skaat, skaat. It's not enough. Hang on!" JakTorr activated the emergency braking thrusters which immediately flared to life, overloading the inertial compensators, causing JakTorr to be pushed forward against his safety harness. Saundaharr however, was holding on to his chair for dear life, as he had as yet not been able to secure himself. JakTorr mentally reminded himself to have Zapps install better, self-reactant, restraints. Although the money was probably going to be thin if that cargo got damaged. Slider continued to pull the nose up, and everything seemed to be leveling out, when there was loud crunch, followed by what sounded like a muffled explosion. Star Duster lurched hard to starboard, started a slight roll, and then JakTorr watched the emergency thrusters sputter twice before dying completely.

   JakTorr's eyes went as wide as they ever had, as his last chance of stopping Star Duster from impacting this new vessel, was suddenly gone. "ZAPPS! What the foktar was that?! Get those thrusters back now, or they'll need a paint scraper to clean us up!"

   Saundaharr finally managed to strap into his seat, and rapidly set about his station, entering commands and reading displays. The situation was bad, and he knew JakTorr wasn't going to like it. "Thrusters gone. Kaput. No more. Main engines are offline. I get you minimal RCS at best."

   JakTorr's turned to look back at Saundaharr. "RCS?! That is going to do squat! What the hell happened?"

   Saundaharr typed at his readouts some more before answering. "Hard to tell. Engineering bay probably looking like younglings took fusion torches to it. I might be able tell you later. No guarantees."

   JakTorr tuned back to flying and managed to take the spin off Star Duster's trajectory. The nose was up enough that he wasn't going to slam face first, but it was still going to be a rough belly-in. "Alright Zapps, brace for impact. Give me all the power to the repulsors you can squeeze. We'll try and soften the landing as much as possible. I'm angling the shields to forward quadrants. Hopefully that'll bleed some energy off too. Now hag on!" JakTorr punched in the last of his commands, and then held on to his console. As the hull of the large vessel came up towards them, he managed to catch a glimpse of Yuroi IV just behind it. Man we did come in too close. The last thing he heard before impact, was Saundaharr pleading his ancestors not to take him just yet.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Out in space, not many were in position to see the Star Duster appear from hyperspace, and plummet towards the lifeless hulk. There a few though, and as they watched, the white and golden freighter tried desperately to slow. The nose started coming up, the emergency thrusters fired, but then and explosion. A section on the bottom of the freighter, near the engine pods at the rear, blew out. Fire, smoke, and countless pieces of metal debris flew from the ship, quickly dissipating as they went. Just before the ship bellied in, the sheilds flared brightly on impact, and then the belly of the little freighter dug into the quiet ship that had come from no where.

 

---

"Apparently getting your ass kicked is now part of a complete breakfast." - Roy Greenhilt, Order Of The Stick


- An Answerer of questions, and Questioner of answers.

James watched as the new freighter tried pathetically to stop, punching his own engines to their full capacity and swinging his nimble fighter away from the lifeless ship before him. Bitterly he thought as he spun his ship back to see what damage ensued, Damnit, learn to pilot a ship before you take one into space you stupid ox.. Pressing the communicator button he signaled the Forgotten Ages, "Thad, get the rest of the pilots in space, same orders as our fighters currently have, and widen the tractor beam to include that freighter. We're going to have to clean this idiot's mess up." He flinched as the freighter collided with the dead ship after a futile attempt to slow itself down with its own shields. The two ships momentarily began moving from the impact, but the Ages' tractor beam slowed and stopped their momentum. He pressed his communicator and signaled to Cassidy, "Robert, are you alright?" he asked, looking for the Dortmunder.

James' 5 G190 fighters reached the dead ship just as the collision occured, they each set up an orbit around the two ships as the Ages pivoted, showing its starboard side to the new ship and its dead companion, and glided toward the crash site gracefully, slowly coming to a stop about 50 meters from the pair.

James finally punched the communicator again, this time very angrily, and directed his message to the new ship, Stupid rookie pilots...buy ships and think they're stinking invincible..., "Freighter, this is Captain James O'Daniel of the Forgotten Ages. Identify yourself immediately."

---

"SATAAAAAAAAN!!!" --Alex

30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest like peanut butter; except grandma. She drives a Buick.

"No, I'm quite capable of dressing myself...where's my pants?"

“I’m fine.” Came the reply as Cassidy’s fighter came into view under the two collided ships where he had nimbly dodged the incoming freighter.

   In the barely lit cockpit of the Star Duster, JakTorr's head ached as if he had borne the brunt of the impact with his face. Trying to move, he felt his left arm stab through with a razor pain. The reason he found, was that a splinter of the bulkhead had pierced it just below the elbow. Damn. Using his right arm, which was sore but none the worse for wear, he lifted and gentle manuevered the injured forearm into a less awkward position. It was then that he remembered his engineer. "Zapps. Zapps? Are you still alive?"

   Amidst the noise of electrical shorts popping and the still groaning hull of the ship, there came a low groan, and a brown furred hand appeared over the wreckage that was once Saundaharr's custom chair. "I alive, at least bits. Much of me still feel like it undecided." Pulling himself upright, Saundaharr winced at a dull ache in his head. Reaching up with a hand, he found the source of the pain, and his hand came back slightly wet with blood. "Well this just great. Not only you bust up ship, you bust up me. I only wish it be so easy to fix up ship." JakTorr snorted at the ever constant grumbling, and unstrapped himself from his seat. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, glad mostly just to find them still attached.

   "Listen, Zapps we've got to check the hold. Make sure all those crates stayed intact." Beforce Saundaharr could belt his latest rebuke concerning his companions problem with priorities, the cabin was suddenly filled by a static laden voice from a barely functioning comm system.

   "Freighter, ....... is Captain Jam........iel of the F.....otten Ages. I.............mediate..........."

   Zapps and Slider stared at each other for a moment, mostly of shock that anything was still working, but also because neither were expecting such a quick response from anyone in the area. Then, Saundaharr's eyes pratically lit up. "Slider, the cargo. If any damaged, could mean real bad news for all." JakTorr stood silent for a moment as things rapidly fell into place. Reaching for the comm panel he keyed it just as the transmission came again.

   "I say again, this..........tain O'Daniel of the Forgotten ...... Identify youself."

   Taking a deep breath, JakTorr gave it his all to sound in control of the situation. "To any and all vessels in the area, this is Captain JakTorr Ferrlo of the freighter Star Duster, transponder ID 227-Bravo-Delta-0031-Foxtrot-Sierra-36, and I am declaring an emergency. We have experienced an unknown phenomenon resulting in catastrophic hyperspace failure. My ship is carrying potentially volatile cargo, and all ships are advised to keep clear until we can assess damage." JakTorr paused, glancing down at Saundaharr who was finally coming to his feet. His voise suddenly lost its force, and the rest of his transmission came out as sounding fairly dejected.  "I don't know if anyone will hear this, but I say again, we are carrying volatile cargo. Allow us to assess damage. Do not approach. Transmission ends."

   Keying the pad off, he turned to Saundaharr who was now banadaging his forehead with cloth that JakTorr hadn't seen earlier. Once Zapps was done, he looked up at Slider. "What we do now?"

   Grabbing his jacket from the floor, JakTorr started for the door, which now hung apart and at odd angles. "Exactly what I said. We check the crystals, then assess damage. And pray to ZekMarr that we live long enough to get the bill for all this."

---

"Apparently getting your ass kicked is now part of a complete breakfast." - Roy Greenhilt, Order Of The Stick


- An Answerer of questions, and Questioner of answers.

James nods at hearing that the crew of the freighter is still alive, he could now be annoyed with a clear concience. Though it didn't appear that it was totally the freighter crew's fault, they dropped out of hyperspace much too close to Yuroi station, the only thing that saved the Forgotten Ages was the freighter's angle of entry...If they'd come from a degree to his port, his ship may have been the one feeling it, that's what he was annoyed with.

He pressed his communicator, "Thad? Scratch holding them both. The freighter sounds like they want to be independent, I don't intend to stifle their self-image...pull them away from the dead ship then let them drift, we'll check in on them later." Thad's voice buzzed back to him, "Roger cap." James nodded again, "And get a few more scans of the dead ship, I took a peek on the way over here, but didn't notice anything out of the ordinary with my sensors. I want to know what was dislodged in that explosion. We need life support status in specific, but report anything else that's odd."

James pressed his communicator button again and spoke to Cassidy, "Robert, I'm having our new friends removed from the dead ship. The Ages is going to do a sensor sweep of it and tell us if life support is still operational on it, and anything else it sees as unusual. While we have a second to kill, what's this all about anyway?" He asked as he observed that his other 5 G190 fighters had fallen into position orbiting the dead ship.

((Blood, I need you to act as my sensor and tell me about what happened to the dead ship.))

---

"SATAAAAAAAAN!!!" --Alex

30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest like peanut butter; except grandma. She drives a Buick.

"No, I'm quite capable of dressing myself...where's my pants?"

The Starflame's rather lackluster state was suddenly pushed to the limit as the collison jostled the entirety of the electrical systems.  Emergeny power kicked in for long enough to power the shields and soften the blow of the incredibly damaging crash.  It was barely enough to keep the ship's hull from caving in, and as such the ship flared to life for a brief moment, engines powering up slightly and sending it forward just a tad, and the crackling energy surge activated several of the internal systems, allowing also another key thing to occur, the locker which Tweak had been stuffed into, which instantly tossed out the prone Relnian.

"What happened..."

Muttered the prone Relnian, and in a second he was up as he realized his precious ship was the brunt of a damaging blow, running over to the power controls in order to maintain key oxygen levels, before instantly turning on the grav locks so that whatever had hit them wouldn't pull away and ram them again.  Were it a ship.  In any case, aside from that, the ship's already damaged power systems began to surge into the Distortion Array, and with a cry Tweak ran toward the control console, flipping the dials and activating the emergency shunt, sending the power to the more important shields and life support systems, whilst also trying his best to keep the ship from coming apart at the seems, but the flaring systems and armored supports showed the ship to be more than a little bit damaged - as though the ship had been disabled then collided with some other sort of ship.

"Dear god I don't know what Captain has done to this ship, but it will be a hell of a time to repair it."

At that point Tweak realized he hadn't heard the Captain for some time now, and began to ponder the situation - but he didn't get much time since the Distortion Array's power shot through the roof, and began to attempt another jump, and with a quick use of ingenuity and elbow grease, Tweak twisted off the power, and watched as the sizzling power jumped into the primary power line, and shot through-out the ship, probably causing the entire thing to light up like a light bulb before it sizzled out, the lights dimming into emergency mode again, as Tweak cursed up a storm.

To the rest of the world, the ship shot forward a few bits, then stopped, it's shields activating slightly as it the sizzling electrical damage appeared to flow around the hull.  It bent and buckled inward slightly at the point of the collision, but aside from that there appeared to be merely superficial damage, although the power supply quickly was affected, and it all went dark for a bit, the shields dissipating and the lights fading to an emergency set-up, the sensors seeming to indicate that the ship had gone through some sort of power surge and was now recovering from it, but it was still very much alive in one way or another.

---

"... if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for Destruction Ice is also great
And would suffice."
- Robert Frost

“With all due respect sir, explaining this would take much longer than I would like to take at the moment; I would feel a lot better talking about this after we have secured the salvage aboard the Ages.” Cassidy replied. “I’m not sure what’s going on myself entirely but I need to take a look on board that ship; if Dortmunder had the capabilities I would board her myself here and now unfortunately my ship is purely a combat vessel and is not equipped for hatch to hatch entry.”

 

Cassidy was carefully monitoring the ship with his own sensors and discovered the same information that James had.

James nodded, "Very well Robert." He added the Ages to his commiunication, "Thad, one more ship to call out. Get the cargo transport warmed up in the cargo bay, I'll be coming back for it." He pressed the comm switch again and was only speaking to Cassidy, "Care to join me Robert? Or are you going to stay with the pilots and form a perimeter?" He asked as he swung back toward the Ages hangar bay.

---

"SATAAAAAAAAN!!!" --Alex

30 days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest like peanut butter; except grandma. She drives a Buick.

"No, I'm quite capable of dressing myself...where's my pants?"

Tweak's focus stayed on keeping the engines from going critical from the energy surge for a bit, but then the focus quickly adapted from that to the fact that he had no input from his Captain, but then shifted more quickly to the fact that the communications had shown no input from the colliding ship, and that mere fact gave Tweak enough curiousity to leave the sanctity of his engine room and start toward the main bridge, something he wished he hadn't done.

"Dear god... no..."

He exclaimed, as the stench of blood and death permeated the bridge, the six other members of his crew laying across the floor; their corpses telling the story clearly enough.  Someone had boarded the ship, sometime after the jump using the Distortion Array, but according to the sensors, which he quickly checked, their ship had somehow ended up in another section of space, another place where the Relnians had little or no ability to affect.  Not that it mattered anyway, without the Distortion Array travel back to his home would take a long time, but at least he knew that nothing had occurred besides that to the ship.  Then he went to the chronometer, and noted a problem with that as well.

"What?  It's ticking backwards... it's not even keeping track of time, I'll have to sync up with a local ship..."

With that, he looked at his own chronometer, the one on his wrist, and then noted that it was not, and gave only a few hours after the previous collision, the one which had occurred after the Distortion jump.  That giving him some level of relief, he went to the communications array; only to discover that it had somehow managed to get fried in one or the other of the collisions, but it seemed salvageable enough that with the right parts it could be repaired, but as of now he couldn't focus on it, and instead placed his focus on the sensors, which he was soon surprised to realize that there was a ship gravlocked to the hull still, and it was probably a good idea for him to look and see if there was a way he could get the thrusters up enough for him to go into something of a docking procedure, so he turned off the gravlock and activated a quick burst to put him into position, enough so that he activated a docking clamp to their airlock, and instantly turned on the internal systems, going back to the engine room to try and coax more power out of the ship.

"What am I supposed to do now.. my crew is dead... and I have... no one."

---

"... if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for Destruction Ice is also great
And would suffice."
- Robert Frost