Frostysleepcloudscrimsonbreath.
Cold numb ornament floating pulse.
Thoughts unscrambling. Closed petals awakening.
Time accelerating, meaning taking shape.

Aisha blinked and groaned as the world of the living slowly welcomed her back from the sub-zero state of near death called cryosleep. Her consciousness slowly gained form as neurons started firing faster and faster, information assaulting her senses.

It was not a good awakening. As the transparent cover of her cryochamber, still covered in icy arabesques, slowly slipped aside, she realized with a start that the room was flooded with red emergency lighting. It took her brain another couple of seconds to register that her body was not experiencing gravity.

Red emergency lighting. Zero-G. That could only mean one thing. Aisha shuddered involuntarily as the implications hit her.

The ship’s fusion reactor was offline.

Aisha sat up very slowly, bracing herself against the cryochamber to avoid floating out into the room. She wasn’t particularly experienced in zero-gravity, but she was experienced enough to avoid sudden jerky movements that could send her spinning head over heels to the room’s ceiling.

She couldn’t help noticing that the ship was silent. A quick look around showed that, surprisingly, the other four cryogenic beds were still closed, the lights on their status displays indicating that they were functioning normally on reserve power. The room itself was spartan and cold, with a row of lockers containing their clothes and most personal possessions on one wall, and an emergency medkit near the door that led outside.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:42, Sun 05 June 2022.

Aisha panicked for a minute, her face flushing pale.

No fusion reactor! Out of a portal jump? Oh icons, we're in portal space. I'm...

Not crazy?

Her breathing slowed, and her eyes lost a part of their wildness.

Tammam. Focus, Aisha. Emergency procedures. First, sitrep. Oxygen levels, ship damage, reason for the reactor shutdown. Other life supports. If all good, get the rest of the crew out. If not, reassess. 

Aisha looked around for the cryo-room's data terminal, and calculated her jump. She'd need to get there quickly, but without wasting time with mistakes. She slowly pulled herself from the chamber and prayed out loud to her birth Icon as she cast herself across the room.

"Gambler, let this not be as bad as it looks..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:16, Sun 05 June 2022.

By the Icons, it's cold.

Under the emergency shutdown protocol, all power to non-essential systems was either cut off or limited to the bare minimum. When it came to ambient temperature, the bare minimum seemed to be just a tad above absolutely freezing. Wearing only her undergarments, Aisha got a severe case of gooseflesh in a matter of seconds.

Having located the room's console, Aisha pushed off gently and glided through the air in its direction. She realized her folly halfway to the display - a data console in the stasis room was considered non-essential for purposes of flying aimlessly through space without a functional reactor.

I'm still groggy from the cryosleep. There are probably some boosters in the emergency medkit by the door.

Upon reaching the wall with the console, Aisha grabbed a handhold, cushioned her landing with her feet and steadied herself. The occupied cryobeds would be the last to go, obviously. There were no sirens indicating critical decompression. There would be a functioning console on the bridge above. She looked at the cryonic chambers with the rest of the crew and shuddered as the word coffin came unbidden into her mind. But she knew it would take time to manually launch the revival cycle, and she currently didn't know whether she actually had the time.

Maybe the Gambler is with me today. I'm the only one awake, and I'm the ship's engineer. If someone can figure this out, it's me.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:05, Sun 05 June 2022.

Path set, Aisha headed for the door. Reaching it, she double checked the emergency medkit and tucked a booster into her nightshirt, just in case.

She paused at the door; the bridge, or straight to engineering? No, the bridge. It was closer, straight up the access ladder, and would tell her if a straight reactor start was even possible. If it was, she could remotely start the cryo open process from the bridge and then head to engineering.

Maybe with a quick stop past her room for something warmer to wear.

Next stop: the bridge and a data console.

Aisha pushed off.

Aisha propelled herself towards the door, caught another handhold and cushioned the landing with her shoulder. Opening the emergency medkit, she quickly located a small syringe with a stimulant cocktail and tucked it into her nightshirt. The door's proximity sensors were shut off, but as she turned the circular auxiliary latch, the hydraulics dutifully hummed to life.

The corridor beyond looked foreboding in the red emergency lighting. A door to the left led to the section with the chapel, the computer room and the fore airlock, while the medlab was straight across from the statis room. Aisha, however, focused her attention to the right, on the ladder leading up to the bridge and down to the mess hall and the crew quarters. Pushing off again, she drifted towards the hatch leading to the upper deck, grabbed one of the rungs and absorbed the impact with her feet. She slammed the access button, the hatch cycled open above her, and she went through.

Aisha usually spent a lot less time on the bridge than the rest of the crew. An engineer's place was mainly in the bowels of the ship, on the lower decks. That was probably the reason why it took her several seconds to come to a sudden realization that sent a chill down her spine.

There are no stars.

Beyond the ship's viewports was a yawning darkness that mocked her, whispered to her, wanted to smother her. Something cackled imperceptibly at the edge of her consciousness, and she spun around instinctively, but of course there was no one there.

She did see the main control console, however, and lost no time getting there, driven by adrenaline that made the medkit stimulants completely redundant. Thankfully, the console was online, and Aisha quickly ran a diagnostics check.

First things first. Oxygen levels are within normal.

She quickly went through the ship's systems deck by deck. The first red flag that got her attention was that the chapel was depressurized. She quickly performed an atmospheric reading.

Hard vacuum.

The sensor array on deck two was completely fried. Aisha took a deep breath and shifted the ship view to the lower deck. The reactor and the grav projectors pulsed a steady red, confirming their offline status. There also seemed to be a critical malfunction in one of the cryochambers occupied by their passengers. Aisha instinctively pulled up the readings for the chamber's occupant.

Mallak, Soroush. Flatlined.

Aisha ground her teeth and pushed the dead pilgrim from her thoughts. Focusing on the reactor, she pulled up a menu, bypassed several dialogue windows and finally reached what she was looking for.

Remote reactor restart. Gambler, help me.

The red emergency lighting flickered momentarily, as the restart procedure was launched, but just as quickly as it started, the attempt was over. Remote reactor restart failure, the display read impassively.

Suddenly a deep, almost subaural groan resounded through the ship, as if some antediluvian behemoth awoke from a deep slumber. Aisha would recognize that sound anywhere. It was the unmistakable sound of metal groaning under pressure.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:00, Mon 06 June 2022.

Structural failure! Dammit, that shouldn't be happening.

Aisha locked down all the bulkheads, leaving only the most protected path between the bridge, crew cryo chamber and engineering.

Yallah Adhan, I need better diagnostics! What have you been doing up here?

Aisha focused on information gathering. Reason for initial reactor failure. Reason for remote restart failure. Fuel levels. Time offline, and power remaining. Reactor completely cool? Current course and - she shuddered - location. Autopilot status; if she just turned the engine on, would the Star do the rest?

How in Icons' names had they ended up here?

While the computer brought up the requested information, she ran her own personal diagnostic.

My tools? Engineering. Emergency flight suit? Bridge entryway. Anything else? Not that i can think of.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:15, Tue 07 June 2022.

Aisha went through the list of doors, remotely locking them down one by one, leaving only the pathway to the lower deck. She would have to descend the ladder from the bridge to deck two, cross through the mess hall and crew quarters, and finally go down another ladder to the lower deck. She frowned, double-checked. The door leading to the passenger stasis room was unresponsive. A quick test showed hydraulic failure. There wasn't much she could do about it from the bridge, so she let it go and instead focused her attention on the main problem.

Aisha brought up reactor logs and stared at them, dumbfounded. They simply ended on 7l.Dec.60. As far as the data were concerned, the last entry was a short time before entering the Aiwaz portal, with the final reactor and temperature readings, as well as fuel levels, within normal range. It was jarringly obvious that her recent remote restart attempt had not been recorded. She pressed a couple of buttons to bring up the current system time and scowled. Instead of a datetime value she got a not-a-number error. Feeling resigned, she brought up the current fuel levels, and was finally rewarded with tanks that were slightly below half-full.

Next she accessed the current reactor temperature reading. It was not promising. The reactor had been dormant long enough to cool down completely. She located the navigation tab, muttered a quick prayer, closed her eyes and pressed a button. When she opened her eyes again, the display silently mocked her with a trio of messages. Current location unknown, sensor array failure. No set course. Autopilot not engaged.

Suddenly a surge of garbage data ran across the screen, covering it entirely in a matter of seconds. Aisha pressed several buttons, tried a soft reset, but the display simply froze up. Before she could do anything else, she heard a barely audible click from somewhere below the console and the screen went dark. She tried starting it up again, but found it to be completely resistant to her advances.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 09:00, Tue 07 June 2022.

Well, at least I got something before it shut down. And, now I know what the next steps are.

Aisha turned from the console and pushed off for the ladder, heading back to the cryo room. On the way, she grabbed three of the emergency flight suits and put one on; if this was going to take hours, she'd need to warm up. She also grabbed her survival mask from her room, as a back up in case that groaning continued.

Reaching the crew cryo room, Aisha started the warm up process for Kira and Adhan. There were clearly faults in the computer system - maybe even some kind of meme attack? She'd need Adhan to deal with that lest it keep automatically stopping the reactor launch. And Aisha didn't know exactly how Kira was going to pilot the ship from nowhere to somewhere... but that's Kira's problem, she thought to herself.

Her hand hesitated over the commands to wake Asa. This seemed like a "captain" type problem, but what was Asa going to do? Order them to do their jobs? Still, it would be nice to have another believer awake, if this was portal space.

Then she remembered the weird data burst, and hit the open button before moving over to do the same for Farah. If it was some meme attack, Aisha couldn't be sure what the meme might do to cryosleepers. Icons, but one's already dead! Maybe I should wake up the other passengers too?

She looked over at Asa's pod again.

No, that was definitely a "captain" problem.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:23, Wed 08 June 2022.

Putting on an emergency flight suit in weightlessness turned out to be easier said than done. Aisha made several languid somersaults in the air as she fitted her legs and arms into the protective garment. Not only did the suit protect her from the cold, but it also gave her confidence a much needed boost. She pushed off for the access hatch and went head first down the ladder and back to the stasis room.

Once there, she manually launched the revival process for Kira and Adhan. After a moment of deliberation, she did the same for Asa and Farah. The cryonic beds hummed to life and countdown timers appeared on the control displays. It would take roughly ninety minutes for the revival cycles to complete. Aisha knew that there was an emergency option that took about a third of the standard time, but there was a much higher risk of debilitating or even fatal side effects. Given her lack of medical expertise, Aisha did not feel too comfortable with that option.

She left the stasis room and headed down the ladder to the second deck. As her feet touched the floor, she turned around, and caught a flicker of motion out of the corner of her eye. She started, almost lost her hold on the ladder's rungs, but it was only an unsecured food packet turning slowly in the air, the silver packaging dully reflecting the red emergency light.

Aisha took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. She was in the ship's mess, with two narrow corridors running left and right to airlocks and two doors leading to the galley and the storage area. Another corridor led past the crew cabins. At the end of the corridor was the sensor array room and two ladders leading to the lower deck, where the passenger statis room, the cargo bay and engineering were located.

Aisha remembered that she had stored her survival mask in the storage room and propelled herself towards its door. Once there, she manually opened it and quickly located the mask in the crimson semidarkness. Grabbing the item, she backed out of the area and made sure to close and lock the door behind her. Back in the mess hall, she considered her next steps.

Time to do my job, thought Aisha. Though I might do a quick check on the passenger cryo beds while I'm going past.

Aisha pushed past the cabins to the companionway down to the cargo deck and then down. Reaching the bottom and heading into the passengers cryo-chamber, she looked around for any obvious reasons for the door's hydraulic malfunction and checked the cryo status lights for any urgent reasons to wake the sleepers.

Unless there's something urgent, I'll leave it to Asa and head on to engineering.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:04, Wed 08 June 2022.

Pushing past the crew cabins, Aisha soon reached one of the companionways leading to the lower deck. Grabbing the ladder's top rung, she climbed down and turned around, curious to discover the issue plaguing the malfunctioning door.

There was no need, however, for a close inspection. The reason for the door's inability to close properly was readily apparent even in the dimness of the emergency lighting.

The door had literally exploded. Its construction was mangled so badly that hydraulic failure was the least of its worries. The blow had been powerful enough to warp reinforced steel as if it had been tin foil. Jagged metal protuberances jutted into the corridor in an outward fashion, reminding Aisha of some macabre hungry mouth. She squinted - there were small globules of dark liquid floating in the air, probably fluid from the torn tubing usually hidden in the walls. She involuntarily shook her head from the sheer intensity of the carnage she was witnessing, without a single idea of what could have caused it.

Aisha moved slowly forwards, drawn in by the wreckage. The blast pattern was fascinating; her gaze followed torn metal and leaking fluid to see inside the passenger cryo chamber.

That kind of damage... this deck should be open to vacuum, surely? And small wonder a passenger was dead, why weren't they all? Aisha looked around the small room through the gaping hole where the door used to be.
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:12, Thu 09 June 2022.

Drawn in by the inexplicable wreckage, Aisha gently pushed herself towards the entrance to the stasis room, careful not to cut herself on the serrated edges. Reaching the blasted door, she looked inside, not knowing what to expect. When she finally did lay eyes on the room's interior, she almost gagged from the sight.

There was blood and gore everywhere, with zero gravity making it even worse. Vermilion spheres large and small floated in the air, colliding with one another, then broken up once again by bits of tissue and bone. Worst of all was the body of the dead pilgrim, or whatever remained of it, spinning along several axes in a slow macabre dance, the entire scene accentuated by a halo of glass shards glittering like small rubies in the red light. It looked like the corpse's chest cavity exploded with incredible force, an observation reinforced by the sight of splintered ribs sticking out in all directions. Though her vision was becoming blurred, Aisha spied the faulty cryobed, its cover brutally shattered, its insides a dark moist mess.

Fighting to keep her stomach under control, she glanced at the room's floor and started in alarm. A wet trail ran from the demolished cryochamber to the door, as if something had slithered from the bloody wreckage to leave the room. Aisha couldn't help noticing the similarity between the sad state of the dead man's chest and the condition of the door. With panic threatening to overwhelm her, Aisha instinctively followed the trail with her gaze: through the blasted entryway, across the floor, then...

The creature was right behind her. It was huge. No, it was enormous. It filled up almost the entire corridor, a loathsome hulking mass of maggot-infested flesh, darkly gleaming sinew and irregular bony protrusions. It was impossible to make out the details in the dim light, but in the center of the putrid mass, facing her, was a giant beak, as if from some dead primeval bird. Above it, a pair of weeping eyes regarded her with a malevolent intelligence. As Aisha looked on, frozen in utter horror, the creature's beak opened wide, oh so impossibly wide.

Aisha screamed.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:04, Thu 09 June 2022.