<< BACK TO RS001 LOG -------------- Ship : Lantashi Dance Log : 001 Date : Undetermined Status : Everything's a Mystery -------------- /* TRANSMISSION START */ Captain Lantashi here. I have been awake for nearly a week, but this is the first log that I have been able to write. The QEC appears to be operational without assistance, which is more than I can say for the rest of my ship! Our scout ship has a crew of 50. Currently 10 of us are awake. Another 20 statis pods malfunctioned, and the crew members in them perished. The remaining 20 are still in statis. We were promised by "the Corporation" that these pods would last longer, be more durable, than the ship itself. In other words, they would be the last to go. Hence, the crew has a mystery on its hands. Several mysteries, actually. Mystery One: What happend? Mystery Two: Where are we? Mystery Three: *When* are we?? The Dance AI chose to wake up the senior officers first. Chief among them, of course, is I, Lantashi, the redheaded Sylvan. But there is also my first officer, the Horned One, the Catfolk (doctor), the Elephant Man (Chief Engineer), and the Minotaur (Chief Security Officer, and resident poet). Also awake are several other engineers, all running about trying to fix the ship! If this sounds like a strange crew, it is. It is the crew that was picked up on Stiulla system, as part of a 'Exchange Program', if you will. We swapped out our officer crew (excluding myself) with people from the planet Matridoth. I myself am Sylvan, one of the 'hidden folk' from Earth. The Catfolk is the medical officer, and I am grateful for him. For my pod, too, had malfunctioned, and for several days after my awakening, the Catfolk had to fight to keep me alive. Thank the Stars (for we are among them) for his skill. I am not 100%, but I am on my feet and walking about. I wish I could say his name, but every time he tells it to me, he sounds like a cat mewing. So for now Kit it is! It is only in the last day or two that I was no longer delirious, shouting that I wanted my trees and my parents and my companion fox. Oh, that fox was long ago. Once we got the sensors back up and running, we saw our starship in the midst of a colorful nebula. It is said that space is cold and void, but *our space*, my crew's space, is colorful and warm and inviting. It also means we're way off course, since we should have gone nowhere near a nebula, or that we traveled right past our destination for... dozens of years more? Maybe hundreds? I don't think the Dance could have lasted hundreds of years without sentient upkeep (sorry to the ship AI - Foxy - no you're not sentient). The navigation computers are down. If we could get them back up, that would help out. The Horned One, Yonas, is working on that. Meanwhile, Dothmer (Minotaur) and Bearth (Elephant Man) are fixing up the remaining pods. We either have to stabilize them, or wake the remaining crew up and hope for the best. The problem with everyone awake is that we would start tearing through the ship rations, and who knows where the nearest habitable planet is? So, we don't know where we are. We don't know when we are. We probably don't have enough food. And the ship is broken. Other than that, everything is great! ~Captain Lantashi /* TRANSMISSION END */ ------------ Wiki System Stiulla System - Star system 100 light years from Earth. The fifth planet, Matridoth, is inhabited. The planet there had a mixture of races that lived together, somewhat peacefully (by Earth standards). They had just gotten in-system spaceflight working a few years before the Lantashi Dance entered system. Horned One - Humanoid. About human height, but has small curved horns, reddish skin, and a tail. Catfolk - Stands erect. Shorter than a human. From what I have learned, they are a talkative lot, very playful, pretty much like a cat. Yes, they love catnip! I miss my cat back on earth! Very good with medicine, herbs, general healing. Elephant Man - Stands between 7 and 8 feet tall. They have developed their minds in ways we on earth have not, and have different types of telepathic powers. Minotaur - Our name for them. Theirs cannot be pronounced. A natural warrior caste. Sylvan - Me! We have hidden among the human population. We are hard to distinguish from humans, and over the centuries our lifespans have shortenedd to only 150 years, making us about a 3rd longer lived or so. We have distinguishing marks - long, pointed ears, sharp facial features, etc - but over time we have learned to disguise our differences. Over the several decades before we left earth aboard the Dance, the Sylvan began to re-emerge. ------------