After leaving the bridge, Albert follows the lights for a distance to the Captain's room -- which is naturally located quite near the bridge. Normally, only the resident of a room or a member of the security detail can access it, but rank hath its privelages.
The door slides open easily enough, revealing a small, somewhat cramped compartment. There's a desk, everything on it neatly stuck in place despite the occasional lack of gravity, and behind that, a bed, and a locker for personal possesions. The desk currently has a dataslate (turned off) and stylus on it, as well as something that looks rather like a momento of Eden.
A small crystal dome, filled with some heavy blue liquid and water, and higher than what might pass for a water-line, tiny mountain speckled with miniscule (but comically oversized, relative to the peak they're perched on) houses.
The chair is currently folded into the wall, and the bed is unmade -- and quite dusty, too. Apparently the Captain used the restraint straps while sleeping, to resist the possibility of being jolted around in null gravity, because the straps are currently locked in place.
"Oh, God..." Albert grimaces at the locked down straps over the dusty bed, recalling Hale's statement regarding the fate of the crew.
"No disrespect intended, Ma'am," he manages, wrinkling his nose as he goes to investigate the locker, first.
The locker is full of clothing, mostly. Captain Kim didn't have anything particularly effeminate, and most of her outfits were the standard-issue practical worksuits that the crew was given. Each hosts a multitude of pockets. Beyond that, there's a spare dataslate, which looks unused, and a heavy sweater that looks to be hand-made.
The only other thing in the locker is a carbiner, a piece of climbing equipment, without any rope. It's about three inches across and looks to be made of heavy steel.
Not finding anything too helpful there, Albert goes to turn on the dataslate on the desk - probably it was the last thing the good captain ever worked on...
Jackpot! The dataslate appears to be the captain's personal journal, according to the entry titles, which are all dates. But, it's also password protected. Hmm.
Albert briefly gives consideration to searching for any note of the password, but shelves that idea immediately. Anyone who legitimately reached the rank of captain wouldn't need to use the same methods he did.
"Hale," he speaks up, "How good are you at decryption?"
"I am sufficient to attempt translation of a previously unrecognized language," Hale offers. "What do you need decrypted, Captain?"
"No, not translation, code-breaking," Albert clarifies.
Hale considers this. "It seems unlikely that I can deduce the cipher that Captain Kim used to record her journal until it is interfaced directly with my own systems," Hale says after a moment. "However, my sensors have recorded her entering it in the past. The command word to log in is: 'Glasnost'."
"Well, that's handy," Albert remarks, making a mental note that Hale would betray him in an instant if he was no longer captain.
Holding up the datapad, he enters the requisite password.
After checking the label on the back of the dataslate, it reveals that the unit is using rod logic, and not standard electrical signals. This does explain why it was able to retain records after ... whatever it was that happened.
The majority of the entries are lengthy, and insightful. They also reveal quite a bit about the good captain. She was a very demanding, unforgiving woman, and one who attempted to micromanage the ship completely. Though, the entries also don't mention her having any suspicion about a mutiny or anything going wrong, right up until the last one:I don't have much time left. Scotts was leading them, and now he's sedated. They shouldn't look for him in my quarters. Hodges and that stupid EVA technician think they can change things, but what do they know?
There probably isn't much time left, but I've installed insurances that the crew's loyalty and life are both in my hands. The signal strength isn't decreasing, and that means we need to act fast, bef
And it ends, just like that.
Albert raises an eyebrow and glances over at the bed, before starting slightly and jumping backwards, looking down at the floor where he just stood. She must have been standing right there...
But what to do with this information? He can hardly bring it to the attention of a superior officer, if the buck now stops with him. So what to do?
"Hale, if you were able to monitor the captain entering her password on a datapad, surely you'd be able to monitor people... I dunno, planning a mutiny?" he asks.
"Affirmative," Hale says. "Monitoring of crew morale and maintaining awareness of the chain of command is very high on my list of priorities."
"And how long before the death of the first crew did you detect any evidence of a potential mutiny?"
"I have no records of crew arranging a mutiny," Hale says after a moment of thought. "However, one of the memory modules is now known to be missing."
"Everyone sure covered their tracks, didn't they?" Albert sighs, "You'd think one side would at least leave some sort of warning for the people in stasis... speaking of that, how long until you thaw out the next batch and they can leave quarantine, Hale?"
"They will be reanimate within four hours, and released into quarantine. Then we will need sixteen hours for health safety," Hale replies.
Albert nods, deciding to head back to the bridge and see what everyone else has found.
Albert is the first one back to the bridge. Kelly can be heard distantly puttering around in the computer control center, which is just below the bridge, and the access-way to the engine control compartment has been left open, flashing red lights warning anyone who sees it to not shut the door.
Currently, the main screen is displaying a shot from the fly-by of the planet that is apparently the ship's goal. The geography looks unfamiliar, a world of greens and browns, speckled generously with blues and the welcoming white strips that indicate clouds in an atmosphere. Hopefully it's breathable.
Albert spends about ten minutes puttering around the bridge in an effort to look busy before at last settling over the sensor console to see what he can learn about the planet below.
If sensors work, that is.
Hale turned the ship so that the working sensors faced the planet -- the rotation must have been pretty slow, since no one felt it ... but it was probably much more noticable at the periphery of the ship rather than the center of the axis of rotation.
The readings are pretty good, considering it was basically a snapshot as the Eidolon hurtled past. Initial readings suggest that the atmospheric composition is a bit closer to Stygia than Landon, but that means breathable either way. The world doesn't seem to have many oceans ... but it could just be the one side the Eidolon got to see in passing has a large continent.
The majority of the landmass is run through with wide rivers and shallow lakes, so it's not entirely a desert world, but there are deserts on it. All in all, it looks to be tropical, angle of axis and temperature readings suggesting a climate as soft as Corvallis'.
Hale has indicated several locations as potential evacuation/crash landing points, but no actual landing locations yet; the readings weren't quite precise enough for that.
While Albert is patiently waiting for people to show up, and examining the maps of the new (unnamed) planet around Sirroco, Kelly wearily climbs up from the computer access hatch, and begins to trudge wordlessly towards his quarters.
Seeing someone finally show up, Albert jumps at the chance to flex his command skills. "Mr Kelly, report?" he asks crisply.
"Huh? Oh. Sorry." Kelly shook his head, trying to return ot a sembalance of paying attention. "Um, Okay, the logs have been pretty thoroughly deleted. On top of that, someone removed a primary memory core. I tossed together something to start recovering everything we can, but the best thing that could happen now is if we find where that core is. Hale says it's not on our part of the ship, which means it must be over on the Eidolon part. And, I'm pretty sure that's it."
Dracos
"So long as nobody jettisoned it," Albert notes. "Very well, I'll instruct a thorough search once we have more people on hand. Dismissed."
Kelly turned and headed off, seeking the comforts of sleep.
Dracos
With no one else left to boss around, Albert resumes puttering around the bridge, going over diagnostics and sensor reports and whatever else happens to be on any particular monitor at any given time.
Luckily, the wait for another crewman is substantially shorter this time. Finn arrives, squeezing something theoretically nutritious out of a tube.
"Ah, crewman Finn!" Albert exclaims jovially, looking up. "How go the repairs?"
"Airlock's done," Finn reports laconically. "Next step'd be t' take a walk, but I want a bot to go out and see what we got on our hands first."
"Excellent," Albert nods approvingly, rubbing his hands together. "Hale, what's the status of our robot inventory?" he asks the omnipresent ship's computer.
"All but one of our robots are operating normally," Hale replies. "Of those operational, two are reserved for emergency situations, currently monitoring the ship within the dust-wall.
"The three other robots are currently clearing dust from the outer corridors -- twenty seven hours remain at the current rate of progress before all dust is cleared.
"Crewman Eric is currently working on the final robot, but has filed a report that the robot has been modified at some point exclusively to work outside an atmosphere. Its joints have all been damaged by the dust beyond repair, and Crewman Eric is attempting to locate replacement joints and pneumatics."
"So there ya go," Finn says with a shrug. "Anyfing in particular you want me t' do in the meantime?"
"Not right now," Albert replies, deciding that sending a robot outside can wait until they've cleared all the first-crew-dust. "I suggest you get some rest. It'll be a while before I can spare a robot to go out and investigate ahead of you."
"Not that tired," Finn says. "I fink I'll go double-check the suits, make sure they're all ready to go, sort of fing, and then give Eric a hand wif fixin' that one bot."
She smiles a bit lopsidedly. "Assumin' all of that meets wit' th' Cap'n's approval, of course."
"Permission granted," Albert nods rigidly.
Finn leaves the bridge, but almost the moment she does so, Hale says, "Captain, I have recieved notification from one of the maintainence bots that suggests the communications array has been." Hale then paused, the first time in a while. "Tampered with internally," Hale then spits out, as though there had been no break in speech. "Until this internal linkup is repaired, the ship will be unable to access the communications array. One portion of the damage is severed cabling between the central hull and the outer-central hull. A repair bot is working on it currently. The secondary portion will require your adjustment of the communications control panel itself."
Finn now goes to It's a Crummy Job, but... (http://pishoque.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=45932#45932).
"That's something I can do, at least," Albert notes, heading over to the comms station and bringing up a diagnostic.
It doesn't take much work to figure out what went on. The communications panel was not smashed to pieces or otherwise destroyed, but someone had opened it up and disconnected every piece of hardware from the back of the board. The majority of the devices are clearly labeled for where they go, and Albert is familiar with the rest from standard usage and maintainence.
But even after the ship lost gravity, everything sitting in the compartment beneath the panel seems to be oddly neatly laid out, not just scattered about.
Albert doesn't really pay attention to the perhaps odd neatness, blithely assuming a robot tidied it up or everything was held down magnetically in zero-g.
Putting everything back where it belongs with little effort, he checks over the system to ensure everything now works as it should.
After putting everything back in place, the comm panel actually works the same as it did before. Of course, now it's actually getting no readings instead of assuming it is. The bots have finished on the cable, and the diagnostics systems indicate that everything within the ship is working correctly. It's the comm array externally that'll need to be checked out next. From the readings that Albert can see, the comm array does have power currently, but isn't communicating with the ship.
Albert makes a note to have someone fix that once the ship stops and they've got some more people thawed out.
But now it looks like there's nothing for him to do... again. Twiddling his thumbs, he strolls around the bridge for a bit, whistling tunelessly, before settling in the captain's chair and attempting to adjust it to his posture.
The chair is potentially pretty comfortable, but the previous captain had it adjusted for someone who wanted to sit bolt upright at all times.
Albert sits in the chair for a while, growing steadily more bored. Being captain might mean something if he had more of an actual crew...
After a while, he stands up and goes looking for the nearest bed that isn't filled with 'dust' to have a nap in.
Albert and Kenny separately are woken by a broadcast from the PA system requesting their presence on the bridge.
Albert now moves to Day One (http://www.pishoque.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=47487#47487).