>>30470525
>Bother your pilot, Miller.

>>30470525
>Check your equipment.

>>30470525
>>Bother your pilot, Miller.

>>30470525
>Bother your pilot, Miller.
Are we there yet?

>Bother your pilot, Miller.

Well, there could be worse things to do than bothering your pilot. Snapping the folders shut, you start making your way through the cramped confines of the ship, all the way forward to the cockpit. It's not exactly the largest and most comfortable part of the ship, sure, but the cockpit always has a grand view of the stars. Unless of course, you are in warp-space. With the warp-shutters extended all the way, the cockpit is lit only by the cold glare of the instrumentation. From behind his seat, you can see Miller swiping away at the various holographic interfaces with a practiced ease.

"Are we there yet?"

"Oh come on Arbeid. You heard me the first time," he grumbles, flicking a holographic panel at your face. Blinking as the screen pretends to bounce off your face harmlessly, you pick it up, scanning through the familiar details of the mission report.

The Thunderous Respite, a Colimar-class frigate. Part of the 5th Patrol Fleet, stationed in the South Rim. Last reports to fleet HQ indicated that it was engaged in battle and lost, though the majority of the crew was safely recovered by the Grey Alsatian. Now that the nonsense with the insurrection was over, the bean-counters want to pick up the pieces and glue them back together. Typical.

"You want a more precise estimate?" Miller asks, brushing away a mote of light from his chin, "I give it maybe thirty minutes. Don't worry, we'll come up nice and slow on it."

"You're the best, Miller."

He grunts quietly, returning his attention to the controls, starting to throttle down the warp drive in subtle increments. Looks like you have thirty minutes to brief the crew.

"Hey, borrow the tannoy for a second?"

"Yea, whatever," he replies, tapping a button on the dashboard, "All yours Arbeid."

"This is Arbeid. Briefing room in five minutes, we've got things to discuss."

>>30471609

By the time you drift into the briefing room, the rest of the crew are already there, sitting by the projector.

Misha and the new guy, Sterling, they're both fiddling with the hologram of the frigate, bringing up the blueprints and design specs, while Mosco and Bill are trying to figure out where the access hatches are and trying to map out the interior on the big board.

It's briefing time.

>Professional. We're on the clock here, so lets get down to business.
>Informal. Relax, it's a routine salvage mission, nothing serious.

>>30471637
Informal, we know who's in charge, and there's no reason to give the new guy the jitters.

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>>30471637
>Informal. Relax, it's a routine salvage mission, nothing serious.

>Informal. Relax, it's a routine salvage mission, nothing serious.

"Right. Listen up everyone," you start, gently tapping the table for their attention, "We've a nice and simple job today."

"Our mission today is aboard the Thunderous Respite, Colimar-class frigate. We've been assigned to evaluate the wreck and start picking it apart for useful gear, then scrap it. We'll get to the fun part once we've stripped the girl- yes, yes, laugh it up Misha. When we make the transition into normal space, we'll split up into two teams."

You turn to Mosco, drawing a nice red line across the aft of the hologram, stopping just short of the engine ring.

"Mosco, I want you to take Sterling and breach into engineering from the aft access hatch. Try and get life support and power restored, give us some lights. Salvage the spare power junctions and non-essential machinery. Do what you need to do. Call me once you're in."

You score another red line towards the front of the frigate, circling the bridge.

"Bill, Misha, you're with me, we'll take the fore access. I want to cut us straight into the bridge, we can start dumping logs and salvaging command modules, try and see what we can dig from the systems.

Now, according to the mission specs, we'll have maybe twelve, fourteen hours here, tops. That's plenty of time, so I don't want shortcuts or rush-jobs. Nice and solid work, you hear?"

A round of nods.

"Any questions?"

Misha pulls up a small hologram of an AI core from her tablet, the blocky device clipping slightly into the ship model,

"We running 'finders keepers' with synths on this one, or do we have to wipe them?" she asks.

>Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one Misha.

>They're milspec; we wipe the core, hand it in.

>>30472722
>Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one Misha.

>>30472722
>They're milspec; we wipe the core, hand it in.
> synths
Are we talking about the warship A.I. here? Or perhaps closer to Alien-verse Synthetics?
Yeah, I don't think I want defense systems suddenly activating or whatnot.

>>30472868
Would it make a difference?

>>30472722
>Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one Misha.

>>30472722
>Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one Misha.

>>30472722
Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one, but it's milspec, so use extra caution. This isn't one of your pets, Misha.

>>30473189
This is a good way to combine them.

>Yeah, we've got finder's rights on this one Misha

The wide grin she's sporting is telling.

"Just try not to plug it into the main system circuit," you add, "Miller doesn't like it when the milspec synths start getting frisky."

"Don't worry Johan, I'll keep her in my room."

Her? Well, that's Misha for you. Not your place to question her hobbies, though; she's pretty good with computers and shit, she knows what she's doing.

Continuing your briefing, you zoom in onto various crew compartments as you finish ticking off the basic salvage list,

"… after we've cleared our initial objectives, I want a thorough back to front. Priorities are the armory, the cargo bay, the comms. We can leave the crew quarters and the like for last.

In the armory, I want the rifles and small arms scrapped. Save the heavy weapons and explosives, melt the rest. See if we can co-opt a few of their own demo charges while we're at it.

Any vehicles or light mech frames go straight into our storage bay, but load them up with as much as you can before we transfer. If you find anything unusual inside, tell us all first before you start cracking it open. Or better still, don't crack it open.

I hear that the VF-122 comms array panel is nailed down to the armor plate. Never stopped me from picking it up. That thing is a prime piece of tech to snag. But be gentle with the inner components, we don't want to break them for obvious reasons.

We'll go over this again after we clear the six hour mark. Make sure you report in on your location now and again, I don't want anybody getting lost-"

The ship intercom squawks to life:

"Re-entering real-space in ten minutes."

"And that's our cue." You smirk, "Go ahead and suit up. Any last questions, you come to me or Bill. Dismissed."

As the crew start making their way to the lockers, you catch a sight of Sterling, fingers still twitching nervously as he follows Mosco out…

>"Sterling, one minute?"
>It's nothing. He'll be fine.

>>30473815
>"Sterling, one minute?"

>>30473815
>"Sterling, one minute?"

>>30473815
Nah, he's fine. Let's see what happens if we leave him alone.

>>30473815

"Sterling, one minute?"

Roll 1d20

Rolled 10

>>30474551

Rolled 8

>>30474551

Rolled 14

>>30474551

>"Sterling, one minute?"

He's a little bit jumpy when you call out to him, but bless his heart, he jumps to fast.

"Sir?"

"None of that, we're all salvors here. You alright, Sterling?"

There's a couple of seconds of headscratching before he gets back to you, wringing his hands somewhat,

"The frigate, it uh... It got lost to enemy action, right?" he asks,

"Like most of the ships we get sent to. What's up?"

He leads you back to the floating hologram, spinning the ship back to your initial sketches around the engineering bay.

"The Colimar frigates run some of the most unstable power cores in the fleet, captain. If the ship's been stricken by fire, there's a damn high chance that wreck might go up if we spin up the main core."

He focuses the diagram on the engine bay, bringing your attention to the dim primary reactor core, spinning gently in all of it's projected glory.

"That thing blows, everything onboard in a mile radius gets vaped. T-that's not exactly good for our future prospects, captain."

[10, 8, 18, averaged to 10]

Ah, right. Definitely the rookie jitters. He hasn't yet gotten used to the idea of poking around in irradiated, smoldering wreckage for shinies and loot. You pat his shoulder gently,

"Good eye Sterling, good eye. Okay, how about you do me an assessment of the primary core's stability then, switch to the secondary core amidships if you think it's not gonna run smoothly? We still need lights and power to operate effectively here."

"Alright. Will do captain."

While he's not exactly reassured, he seems a little calmer now. Well done man, you think to yourself. We might just make a salvor out of him yet.

With that, Sterling leaves the briefing room, leaving you alone with the ship's model, dissolving away into the darkness.

Did you consider prewriting any of this?

>>30474976
As you leave the room yourself, Bill takes a moment to ambush you, giving you a fine slap on the back,

"Stirling still jumpy Johan?" he asks, "The lad graduated from Algolis Naval Academy, right? I hear they put the fear of God into those poor sods there."

"It's nothing much. He's just worried about the engine core exploding."

He gives you a nice, hearty laugh, "Sounds a little like you back in 05, don't it? Hey, remember when old captain Gerhardt asked you to stick your hand into that box?"

Oh no. You'll never get him to shut up about that, will you?

"AAAAAAGAAAAGAAAAH! Aaaaaaaaah!" he screams, his hands flailing around in parody, "'Geeeeet this bloooody thing off!"

Goddamnit. You give Bill a nice, hearty punch to the shoulder, telling him to knock it off and get packed. You have a few things you need to get squared away as well.

====

The transition into normal-space is uneventful as always. The white sheen of the planet Aul's icy plains allows you to pick out the wreck with ease; The frigate is a sorry mess, and you can clearly see the signs of battle, bright and clear like the planet's skies. Along the aft of the ship, you can see a set of massive holes blown right through the armor, exposing parts of the engineering bay to the distant light of the sun. Deep laser scorches trail across the rest of the hull, letting you imagine the vivid work of the enemy in battle, silver beams raking across the ship's flanks...

Printed out along the bow of the ship is her name, THUNDEROUS RESPITE. Her guns silent and her body cold as the void, this once proud ship of the Union lies in pieces, ready to be taken apart and laid to rest at long last.


[Pick a choice AND roll 1d20]

>Stick with the plan. You, Misha and Bill breach the bridge, Mosco and Sterling to engineering.
>Reassessment. Ask Miller to do a sweep around the wreck, examine the damage a bit more.

>>30475101
Yes, and it's been a very valuable learning experience so far. Quite interesting.

Rolled 18

>>30475210

>Stick with the plan. You, Misha and Bill breach the bridge, Mosco and Sterling to engineering.

Rolled 6

>>30475210
>Reassessment. Ask Miller to do a sweep around the wreck, examine the damage a bit more.

Rolled 16

>>30475210
>Reassessment. Ask Miller to do a sweep around the wreck, examine the damage a bit more.

We aren't really in a rush, and if we miss something important it could screw us up later along the line.

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Rolled 2

>>30475210
>Reassessment. Ask Miller to do a sweep around the wreck, examine the damage a bit more.

Alright, let's do this!

Rolled 8

>>30475210

Reassessment

>>30475210
What kind of ice plain is it? Just a layer of frozen water over stone, or is it more like an ice cap?

>Reassessment. Ask Miller to do a sweep around the wreck, examine the damage a bit more.

Miller complies, bringing the ship around for a once over. As you coast gently across the port side, you and the rest of the crew crowd into the now open hangar bay, to try to figure out what the hell happened to the Respite...

[6, 16, 2, averaged to 8]

The damage to the ship's superstructure is substantial; judging by the number of holes blown clean through the armor, it looks like the damn thing was struck by at least four torpedoes, dead on, maybe more if any of them managed to snake into the ship itself. As the searchlight shines through the ship's wounds, you can catch the occasional spark or jagged edge. The outer blocks of the engineering bay looks like they've been completely ruined by weapons fire from here, and the ship's sensors are picking up low levels of radiation, presumably from a fractured engine core. Many of the long laser scars lead directly into the holes, though from this distance, the exact extent of the damage is unclear.

"Jesus," Sterling mumbles, the rasp of the radio cutting into his voice, "She's completely gone, isn't she?"

"Alright. Sterling, scrap that assessment plan. You and Mosco go straight for the secondary reactor. Work from there. Stay the fuck away from engineering until we can get a closer look from within."

You punch the button, prompting the hangar bay door to begin swinging open, your ship slowing down as you near the bridge of the Respite.

"Misha, Bill, with me," you order, engaging your maneuver pack, "I want us in on that bridge in ten minutes. Mosco, Sterling, make sure you keep in contact, report anything and everything strange, you got me?"

"Aye aye."

Orders given, you give a small hop, sending you into the void, letting your maneuver pack carry you towards the bridge, Misha and Bill close behind you. The purring of the little thrusters as they guide you towards the abandoned bridge is all you hear...

>>30475534
Aren't you missing an 18 in that calculation?

>>30475563
I'm guessing it's because the 18 was for the other vote.

>>30475594
Woops, missed that.

>>30475534
Half a minute later, your feet connect satisfyingly with the outer hull of the ship. Right on the money; you landed right on top of the bridge itself. Bill lands right next to you, giving you a thumbs up before he begins scrutinizing the ship's blueprints for a good spot to start cutting into. Misha on the other hand lands right on top of the comms array, quickly attempting to plug into the external data access ports to see what she can do from here. In the distance, you can see Mosco and Sterling jetting towards the rear access hatch.

"Found a good spot," Bill reports, "Help me out here, Johan."

You make your way over to the spot on the roof, Bill already cutting away a wide circular hole into the bridge. The two of you make short work of the hull with your plasma cutters and after waiting for Misha to catch up, the three of you jump through the hole, finding yourselves in the bridge. All around you are familiar, worn out seats and consoles. Right here would have been the nerve center of the entire ship. Misha wastes no time making her way to the AI Core Containment Unit at the back of the room, already pulling out her electronics access unit, whilst Bill starts evaluating the state of the captain's chair as he goes over the various consoles.

There is a low whirring noise, and the lights flicker back, lending the whole room a gentle yellow hue as various systems start coming back to life.

[Bridge]
>Help Misha out with extracting the AI Core.
>See what Bill's doing to the command consoles.
>The navigator's station could use some attention.

>>30475684
>The navigator's station could use some attention.

>>30475684
>The navigator's station could use some attention.

>>30475684
>The navigator's station could use some attention.
Are we in a decaying orbit?
Also, would have replied sooner but cloudflare decided I wasn't allowed on 4chan for some reason.

I apologise.

Due to sudden emergency popping up, I will have to close this early. I'll post an exact time and date in one of the next /qtg/.

>>30476115
twitter where

Rolled 71

>>30476115
No worries. Remember to archive.

>>30475829
No, we're on an ice plain that's of a material unclear.