A scene I enjoyed
Oct. 18th, 2007 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lilfluffSo I was double checking some old posts in the Gundam themed Jovian Chronicles game I have a character in. My character wasn't in this bit, but I still rather like it.
Setting: The characters have just fought off a flight of CEGA exo-armors. When the attack started the military characters got a recall order on their comms, an order that cut off mid sentence. The group's Lieutenant has just reached the bridge of the ship...
... terrible answer to the burning question of what happened is revealed. The room is dark, most of the high-definition video panels that make up the globe-shaped monitor enclosure around the bridge are dark, with only a few showing flickering static. A gaping hole in the upper left of the monitor-globe ceiling shows the hazy blue atmosphere of the Serena colony. A second hole in the lower right of the monitor-globe floor matches it, showing where a CEGA anti-ship torpedo punctured straight through the Pegasus' hull.
The four bridge bunnies and the captain lay dead in their acceleration chairs, scorched by the blast and impaled repeatedly by shrapnel from the missile's passage. At the captain's chair, the armrest-mounted flatpanel console beeps insistently, "SYSTEM RESET - OVERRIDE Y/N?"
...
"System reset complete. Checking command authority. Please wait, processing..." The Pegasus' central computer's soft female voice intoned.
"Captain Carlo Markins not on board.
"First Lieutenant Jeff Starking not on board.
"Second Lieutenant Watson Embleton not on board.
"Second Lieutenant Kaoru Tanizaki not on board.
"Chief Petty Officer Karen Marcus not on board.
"Cadet Lieutenant Gilliam Reilly located."
Another pause, then, "Command authorization complete, JCS Pegasus, Cadet Lieutenant Gilliam Reilly, ranking officer. Bridge stations currently unoccupied. Do you wish to consolidate command functions at captain's station, Captain Reilly?"
Yep, the couple of cadet officers in the group are the last command line officers left in the crew, the rest were killed in the sneak attack. Oh, and it turns out Earth and the outer colonies are now at war, and when they do finally manage text only contact with their command the reply is barely more than a sentence. Report to the Mars Fleet staging area. Hello, didn't we tell you the ship was structurally damaged and under-manned? Oh, then there's the fact that one of the exo pilots has had to be restricted to quarters due to the way she becomes a cold almost robotic killer in combat ("The Jovian Navy does not commit war crimes on camera!" "Would the other pilots please switch off their recorders or aim them elsewhere, I am about to execute the surviving CEGA pilots and I have been ordered not to do so on camera." "Angela! That's not what I meant! Return to the Pegasus, now!"), one pilot has been arrested because he's not military but a civilian who was trespassing in the research facility that was building the new exo-armor designs the ship is now carrying ("Aaaah! They're shooting at me! What do I do! What do I do!" "Move and shoot back." "They're trying to kill me, I don't wanna die!"), or there is the matter of the ship only getting underway and surviving combat on exiting the station because a cryo-capsule was discovered that had a young girl who seems to be an expert with the bridge computers (shades of Firefly and Outlaw Star).
Did I mention that my character the civilian engineer may possibly have the highest security clearance of any of the survivors, news that left him quite worried ("Tanj! I knew the ship got hit hard, but surely there weren't that many casualties! I'm just a contractor!"). Or that their communications and electronic warfare officer is a green, still wet behind the ears, pop-music idol who was only just assigned to the ship for her first post-training cruise. Who wasn't trained for the new just out of the lab equipment she now has to work with.
Setting: The characters have just fought off a flight of CEGA exo-armors. When the attack started the military characters got a recall order on their comms, an order that cut off mid sentence. The group's Lieutenant has just reached the bridge of the ship...
... terrible answer to the burning question of what happened is revealed. The room is dark, most of the high-definition video panels that make up the globe-shaped monitor enclosure around the bridge are dark, with only a few showing flickering static. A gaping hole in the upper left of the monitor-globe ceiling shows the hazy blue atmosphere of the Serena colony. A second hole in the lower right of the monitor-globe floor matches it, showing where a CEGA anti-ship torpedo punctured straight through the Pegasus' hull.
The four bridge bunnies and the captain lay dead in their acceleration chairs, scorched by the blast and impaled repeatedly by shrapnel from the missile's passage. At the captain's chair, the armrest-mounted flatpanel console beeps insistently, "SYSTEM RESET - OVERRIDE Y/N?"
...
"System reset complete. Checking command authority. Please wait, processing..." The Pegasus' central computer's soft female voice intoned.
"Captain Carlo Markins not on board.
"First Lieutenant Jeff Starking not on board.
"Second Lieutenant Watson Embleton not on board.
"Second Lieutenant Kaoru Tanizaki not on board.
"Chief Petty Officer Karen Marcus not on board.
"Cadet Lieutenant Gilliam Reilly located."
Another pause, then, "Command authorization complete, JCS Pegasus, Cadet Lieutenant Gilliam Reilly, ranking officer. Bridge stations currently unoccupied. Do you wish to consolidate command functions at captain's station, Captain Reilly?"
Yep, the couple of cadet officers in the group are the last command line officers left in the crew, the rest were killed in the sneak attack. Oh, and it turns out Earth and the outer colonies are now at war, and when they do finally manage text only contact with their command the reply is barely more than a sentence. Report to the Mars Fleet staging area. Hello, didn't we tell you the ship was structurally damaged and under-manned? Oh, then there's the fact that one of the exo pilots has had to be restricted to quarters due to the way she becomes a cold almost robotic killer in combat ("The Jovian Navy does not commit war crimes on camera!" "Would the other pilots please switch off their recorders or aim them elsewhere, I am about to execute the surviving CEGA pilots and I have been ordered not to do so on camera." "Angela! That's not what I meant! Return to the Pegasus, now!"), one pilot has been arrested because he's not military but a civilian who was trespassing in the research facility that was building the new exo-armor designs the ship is now carrying ("Aaaah! They're shooting at me! What do I do! What do I do!" "Move and shoot back." "They're trying to kill me, I don't wanna die!"), or there is the matter of the ship only getting underway and surviving combat on exiting the station because a cryo-capsule was discovered that had a young girl who seems to be an expert with the bridge computers (shades of Firefly and Outlaw Star).
Did I mention that my character the civilian engineer may possibly have the highest security clearance of any of the survivors, news that left him quite worried ("Tanj! I knew the ship got hit hard, but surely there weren't that many casualties! I'm just a contractor!"). Or that their communications and electronic warfare officer is a green, still wet behind the ears, pop-music idol who was only just assigned to the ship for her first post-training cruise. Who wasn't trained for the new just out of the lab equipment she now has to work with.
