(All beginning posts are translated from the individuals native language, they are not actually in English)
Warning: Damage to decks two, four, seven, and eighteen. Venting atmosphere on decks two, four, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, fourteen, and eighteen. Estimated time until complete decompression: 15 minutes.
Scanning for life signs in cyrostasis pods...two survivors detected on deck one. Two survivors out of one-hundred and twenty-nine remaining. Vessel Jryaa requires a minimum of 20 crew to operate. Emergency protocol's activated. Terminating subspace engine. Returning to normal space.
Zrig opened his eyes lazily, starting to realize that he was waking up. One by one his senses came back to him. First was the noticeable feeling of the warm chemicals that were flowing into his body to aid his recovery from the lengthy time under cyro sleep. Next was the cold blast of air from the door matching the pressure of the deck outside the cyro tube. Hearing and sight were next and that's when he fully awakened at the sound of the alarms.
He fell to the deck, still gasping for the air that was slowly leaking out of the ship. Zrig looked around the area he was in and immediately noticed the fires burning further down the hallway along with wires hanging down and fallen bulkheads. He groaned with one hand on the deck's grating, his other hand holding his head.
What the hell happened he thought to himself as he steadied himself rising to his full height.
"Computer." he croaked, realizing his hoarse voice... "How long were we in stasis and the status of the vessel?"
Vessel Jyraa is critically damaged from resulting battle in the Lzo system and incident in unknown system. Venting atmosphere on multiple decks. Ship is currently stuck in the gravity well of a dying sun.
"We repaired the damage before we jumped. Why are we so damaged now?" he croaked again placing his hand on his chest next to his voice emitters in pain, he was really going to need some fresh liquids.
"Approximately 3,451 sleep cycles ago, the Jyraa entered a system with a massive gravity well, subspace systems were effected and the subspace drive were as well. Ship was forced to drop out of subspace until ship could pass through system. Attacked by an unknown species in system, ship critically damaged. Crew of 127 dead. Only two crew members left alive. Crew member Zrig and crew member Lakari."
"Everyone...my Krazm*..." Zrig looked down at the floor. It was hopeless. Two people couldn't pilot this gunboat and all the lifepods had been ejected before they had jumped away. Zrig looked back up. "Location?"
Vessel Jyraa is currently 1,457,678 lightyears from the Lzo system where the battle took place. Time under cyrosleep has been 823,789,215 sleep cycles, a total of 11,426 years.
"Graza"* Zrig said. "Is the Jyraa salvageable?"
"Negative. Damage too severe. Systems are critical. Life support only remaining system. Ship powerplant is critical. Power loss in 12 hours on emergency power.
A hissing noise sounded from behind him as the other cyro pod opened and Lakari fell out towards the floor, Zrig was quick on his claws and ran to catch her before she hit the deck.
"We've got some serious problems my dear." he said as she looked up at him.
---
Krazm -
Religious deity.
Graza -
Curse word in native language.
Lakari drew in a long breath, coughing, ejecting light blue fluid from her mouth, gasping as air entered her body, she sat back tiredly against the Cryo pod she had just fallen out of, looking to her fellow crewmate and drawing in another breath.
"Things must be bad, if you are addressing me like that..." She paused, looking up toward the glyphs on the crew members uniform. "Zrig, yes?...what has happened, where is everyone else?...what about the Fleet?"
Lakari groaned, coming to her feet, using the side of the cryo-pod for support as she brushed specks of the Cryo-fluids from her silken black uniform.
"Jryaa seems different, where are the Droids?"
After looking around for a few moments more, she turned back to Zrig, eyes widened slightly as if in sudden realization.
"...How long?"
Before Zrig could answer, the nearby Virtual Intelligence terminal chimed a response.
"Vessel Jyraa is currently 1,457,678 lightyears from the Lzo system where the battle took place. Time under cyrosleep has been 823,789,215 sleep cycles, a total of 11,426 years."
"Krazm's blood, how did this happen!?"
Lakari hissed softly, looking to Zrig.
"Where are we...?"
Zrig stared at her with a look of distain.
"Don't give me that, Lakari." Zrig said. "Acting like you don't know me. Snide attitude doesn't suit you." The two remained quiet for a second, staring at one another. "To answer your question" Zrig said, breaking the silence "I know as much as you do. The ship released me from cyrosleep when it detected it had sustained severe damage. According to the ship...we're around an actual star."
Lakari looked at Zrig in amazement.
"Exactly. I don't know where we are exactly for certain. The ship has taken severe damage." Zrig made his way for one of the consoles and began typing rapidly on the screen with his claws. "Computer, you said the stasis pods were damaged? That you had to take power offline to equalize the power flow, correct?"
"That is correct, Crewman Zrig. I was only able to keep the two of you alive until we were able to stop safely."
"According to this console, the stasis pods are still active and functioning as they should. You have an error in your matrix or in the attack the control lines to the pods were damaged beyond repair. They are still functioning at 100% capacity. I don't know if the ship will be able to last much longer without any kind of external power source."
"Vessel Jryaa is an ancient vessel from before the deaths of the stars in the home sectors of the Vexi. This vessel is equipped with ancient solar panels that may still function. Would be enough to keep the Jyraa in orbit around the current star and would allow the stasis pods to remain operational to preserve the crew. I did not consider this initially because it was believed by Krazm church that all the stars in the known universe were dead and that the age of Krazm was upon them."
"More than lilkely to keep our people under their thumb as they normally do...activate the panels, it can't do any harm." Zrig said reconfiguring some buttons on the matrix.
The sound of metal on metal screeched throughout the corridors of the vessel as the panels opened up into space. A few explosions sounded from the rear of the ship, but over all, power began returning to the ship.
"Looks like it worked." Zrig said to himself. "Lets get the ship in a better orbit than it is right now. Then we can get to repairing the damaged systems that are more than likely rupturing some kind of energy and fuel from the vessel--"
Zrig looked behind him and saw no sign of Lakari. He made a thoughtful noise to himself then shrugged and went back to repairing what he could from the console.
Lakari was leaning against a large view port, her face pressed against it as she stared out into space admiring the glittering of far off stars for a long moment before pulling away from the viewport and tilting her head down, beginning to speak in a soft tone.
"Krazm b'saai 'lek vizt kna'as Jryaa...sli'st yau plikt hreen a'lisk..."
(God Bless us lone souls of Jryaa...for we have not been forsaken..)
As she drew up her head to look out the view port again, Lakari let out what might have been construed as a sigh, whispering to herself.
"Let us hope that is truth..."
The sudden power surge throughout the ship somewhat startled Lakari, causing her to jump as the lighting in the observation deck became active.
"Well, that is a surprise..."
She took another look around the chamber before leaving and heading for the ship's bridge.
"Maybe I can engage the auto-pilot systems..."
None of this would be happening had the church just stepped down off it's Krazm damn high and mighty stoop to the lower folk. Instead, they inflicted harsh punishments on those who didn't choose to believe their "word". They had claimed that Krazm had spoken to one of their priests during the night stating that the universe as we knew it would end. When the stars began dying, that it was the time of the coming of Krazm.
Now look at it from a scientists point of view.
The Vexi race had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, they had evolved on a planet several thousand years ago, but had destroyed all but two. It be from mining the crust too much, or by thermo-nuclear war that had all but destroyed the entirety of the planet...the thermo-nuclear war that began thousands of years ago between the church and the resistance...Zrig closed his eyes and tried to remember the scene that was before him all those years ago...he punched the console as he remembered his past.
He had been a noble man once, fighting for what he believed in...that all changed when the traitor had come into the Resistances midst. Who ever they were, they ratted out the Rebel fleet and the Church was waiting for them...waiting for them with thermo-nuclear missiles, the very same missiles that had wiped out almost every planet but two in their entire span of systems...
Zrig watched in horror as the flagship of their fleet was reduced to nothing in mere seconds. The Jryaa had suffered cataclysmic damage to it's main drive core, but there was just enough power left to make an emergency jump. He had entered in random coordinates and jumped away from the battle just as they had made it to their ship. They had repaired the damage mid flight, or so Zrig had thought, and fell into cyrosleep, hoping to come out in some distant star system away from the fighting...to save themselves and their future children from the conflict of a thousand years.
But now, they were lost. Flung across countless lightyears into another part of the Galaxy all together. Did we do the right thing running like we did? Or did we doom ourselves and all those men and women who fought for what they believed were right... Zrig thought to himself...he shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts.
Zrig was fairly certain that Lakari was really pissed at him. Their last conversation just before the cyrosleep wasn't pleasant to say the least, and now she was treating him like he was some foreign person. He had to do what was right...they had to flee...he knew that now. If the future of the Vexi were to have peaceful lives, they must be free of the thousand year war that had ravaged their all of their systems...and now they were here, in a foreign land in a ship that had almost no power...abandoned in the stars themselves. Zrig smiled...and they were all theirs...
...or so he had thought.
"Zrig! Re-route couplings A6 through J4! Try to bring the forward cannons back online! The church cruiser is making another pass!"
"Bloody hell, Liduo! We can't hold on for much longer, we've got to jump out of here! That ship is going to tear us apart if they make another pass!" Zrig replied.
"Krazm damnit! Alright! Jump us out of here! Head to the rendezvous!"
The small ship warped out of existence as it jumped away.
Zrig awoke with a jolt. He was hanging over the computer console asleep. As he opened his eyes, they quickly adjusted to the new lighting of the deck. Power had been restored and Lakari was still nowhere to be seen. He had a hunch she was probably in the cockpit of the ship, attempting to get the autopilot back online to get them of here...where ever here was. She no doubt had already seen the fuel reserves were completely depleted, another reason why the ship had dropped them out of subspace.
She wouldn't want to hear it, Zrig decided. She always chose the optimists path, even when it was damn certain that there wasn't any hope otherwise. Lakari was almost always the positive one in what they had before all this. Zrig would all but give up and she would pull him back from the brink of disaster. When Zrig had jumped the ship out of the fight to save the crew, she scolded him for his "mistake". Zrig snorted to himself as he leaned back in the chair. He hadn't considered it a mistake at the time...now he wondered if it was.
Zrig was still somewhat sure it was the right choice even now. They were in a completely unexplored part of space, far away from the war that had scared their race for thousands of years. It was a new era...but they had to find a planet suitable for them to settle on. Zrig knew that would be the most difficult part being that the only ship left was the one they were on, and it sure as hell wouldn't make it to any planet in the system. The power core was recharging slowly but the fuel was completely drained from the engines. Maybe enough fuel for one jump or enough to stabilize the orbit around the current sun.
Zrig rose slowly from the chair and began walking for the cockpit. He knew he wasn't going to like telling her what he had to tell her...he knew she was going to probably claw him in the face...but it had to be said.