Picking up the new counselor

Posted on Thursday November 7th, 2019 @ 11:31am by Lieutenant Gypsy Sage & Lieutenant Phelan Sabrehagen

Mission: Oh Where, Oh Where, Has My Everything Gone?
Location: Out in Space
Timeline: Just prior to the Counselor arriving.

ON:

Present Time

As Gypsy walked the halls of the station and wandered the shops she thought about all that had brought her here. She thought about her duty request, about the ship she'd left behind, about friends she didn't particularly have.

She gave herself a few hours of melancholy. As she wandered she thought back to the last few days and her trip to the station. She also wanted to look up Phelan Sabrehagen. She had to thank him again for coming to her rescue.


A few days ago ...

Gypsy sighed. This shuttle was starting to wear on her. Experimental...highly. Also seemed like the shuttle was a little too well made. She'd sent out a distress call hours ago and she was only hours from the station. She hoped someone would be here soon.

Distress beacons were always a top priority. Maerynn had been occupied with the furry menaces, so Phelan had taken one of the shuttles and gone to check on the signal. As he approached it, he scanned its source.

The shuttle was clearly Union. It was different, sleek, more compact, elongated and resembled a bird with its wings and beak. There was one life sign and the shuttle was fully equipped with shields. It also seemed to be phasing in and out as if cloaking and uncloaking.

"Nice ship!" he murmured to himself as he scanned it and looked at it. Scanning the area around the vessel revealed that there was an okay place to land -- it wasn't great, but it wouldn't eat his shuttle either -- about a hundred yards west of the crashed vehicle. Before he landed, though, he tried communications. Keying the comm., he spoke calmly and clearly. "Union shuttle, this is Phelan Sabrehagen of Union Mining Station 42. Can you hear me?"

Gypsy had never been happier to hear another voice. She'd heard the shuttle's voice for hours now she'd been hearing Chatty Kathy Shuttle but this was another person. She hit the com button and got a shock for her effort.

Frustrated she pulled out a manual communicator and adjusted the frequency which was not hard as it was able to lock on to Phelan's personal communicator. He would probably wonder why she was communicating this way. "Counselor Gypsy Sage here. I am very glad to see you."

That was weird, Phelan thought. He got a response, but not over the shuttle's comm. system but his commscanner. Frowning, he turned the shuttle's comm. off and took out his commscanner. Activating it, he sent back, "Well, Miss Sage, you seem to be in something of a pickle. Are you injured?"

"Not...Precisely. But...there are issues you should be made aware of. Particularly that this shuttle is...unusual. I managed to rip out some wires so while it's recalibrating we need to get me out and get the heck out of here."

Phelan frowned even as he landed his own shuttle. "I can't land right beside your shuttle. I'm putting down about a hundred yards west of you. Do you need assistance getting out of your ship?" It had sounded like it, so he was gathering the tools that might be needed and putting them in a shoulder case even as he spoke. "I'm on my way now. If you can, get out of the ship. If not, I will be there in a few minutes. But I won't close this channel," he assured. He was fairly certain he wouldn't have wanted to be alone on this planet, so he doubted she did.

"The shuttle is locked up tight," she said into the communicator. "I managed to rip out some wires and that must have locked the shuttle. I don't have much time until it wakes up...the shuttle is...sort of alive."

What kind of crap is this? The ship is alive? Artificial intelligence? Phelan took off at a run in the direction of the downed shuttle. Apparently, there was no time to waste, and he hoped he could reach the lady before the ship 'woke up'. "I'm on my way now," he told her even as he ran.

The shuttle seemed to stir. "Initiating scans..."

Gypsy kept the coms channel open.

The shuttles voice came back. "Sensors are not functioning."

"Imagine that." Gypsy said.

"Internal sensors are at ten percent external at sixty with a gap on the left side."

Gypsy hoped that Phelan heard that. "So let's hope that there are not attacks from the left side. We should get a distress call out." she'd already done it after she'd ripped out the wiring but there was no sense in letting the shuttle know.

"Unable to comply."

Aha! she thought. She had the shuttle. Coms was working fine the shuttle just wouldn't use it. "How come?" Gypsy asked innocently.

"Coms are not working."

"That's a lie. I ran a diagnostic."

"Well then I just don't want to. If someone comes they'll take you from me."

The shuttle had developed some attachment to Gypsy. She hoped her rescuer was careful.

Phelan groaned to himself. Great! Just perfect! The damned shuttle was a codependent lover. Just what he needed today! He sighed as he came to a stop behind some overgrowth, fortunately on the left side of the shuttle. He couldn't say anything to her now without the shuttle overhearing, so he hoped that she was ready when he came up with a way out of this. Too bad there wasn't a Xelayan with him. Well, he'd just have to think of something else.

What did he have to work with? He had a commscanner. No good there. He had a hand weapon. Not really helpful. And he had himself. Well, he did have another shuttle, but that wouldn't help him either; that was why he'd parked it where he had. So where did that leave him... and the lady trapped with the deranged shuttle?

The beginning of an idea came to him and he tapped on the side of his commscanner which would come through on her end as clicks, hopefully soft enough to not be noticed by her ever-present watcher. In Morse Code -- he hoped they still taight that at Union Point -- he tapped out, *Can you keep it's attention? Maybe I can remove one of the windows.*

It took a moment for Gypsy to hear it but the clicks, soft in sound, came through. At first she thought it was static and then her Union training kicked in. "Um.. Computer while we're here maybe you can help me answer a question."

"Certainly," the cheery voice came through.

"There is something I cam across while working with a patient. It's called the Kovolite Eding. I never did look it up. Did you have any information on that?"

"Searching." There was what seemed like a frustrated sigh from the computer. "My circuits are not responding. I will need to shut down for seven minutes to complete database extraction."

Gypsy tried for a light tone, "Sure. Go ahead. I'll just nap here."

"Shutting down."

She hoped her rescuer heard the seven minutes. Something told her the shuttle would be quite précised.

Seven minutes wasn't long. He would have to work fast. He tapped out, *signal when it shuts down* then waited for the signal. The best thing he could think of, sadly, was to cut the window out of the shuttle. Anything else would take longer than he had, and he'd get spotted by the crazy ship when it came back online. Nope, this was it, the only workable plan. He hoped it was workable anyway.

Gypsy listened to the clicking of the computer until it went silent. She called out to the computer to make sure and there was no response. "Shutdown complete!" She stood hurriedly and dragged her bags to the front. There wasn't much. Just a backpack and two long duffle bags. She'd left the rest in anticipation that she needed to make a quick escape from the shuttle.

Phelan didn't hesitate. The very second that she said the computer was down, he used his weapon to cut the window out of the shuttle, cutting the clear surface just inside of the window frame as that would likely be easier to cut than the metal hull. He really didn't like defacing a Union shuttle, but what else could he do really.

He could now see the woman he had been talking to, but he could not afford to stop to admire the view -- that could come later when they were safely on board his shuttle and on their way back to the station. For now, he focused on his work, slowly cutting around the edge of the window. Once he had cut all the way around, he nodded to her. "Just kick it out." He stepped back to give room for the transparent metal to land outside the shuttle.

Gypsy kicked out the window. It caved easily. She shoved the bags out the window and lithely slipped out. As her feet touched the ground the shuttle began to hum. She slipped into the backpack grabbed the two other ones. "Run!"

Phelan heard the hum too. He had reached to grab one of her bags, but she was quick! There was no time just then to ensure that chivalry didn't get onto the Endangered Species List again. He took off, pacing himself to keep just in front of her so that he could lead her to his shuttle but not too far ahead should she need his help. "This way!" He motioned as he ran.

There was a shrieking noise from the shuttle just as they rounded the corner. Gypsy could see that the shuttle was flickering but knew she'd ripped out enough circuits to keep the shuttle form doing any damage. They had stuck to the left so sensors would not be an issue. As they ran and got farther she could feel herself relaxing a bit. "How much further?"

Phelan mentally cringed at the sound the shuttle had made. He might have been imagining it, but he thought it sounded like a combination pf anger and pain. Some part of him felt bad for the thing, but the rest of him just said that this was why the Union didn't build AI. Okay, that was a bit harsh, but it kept him from feeling guilty for leaving it behind alone on this place.

"Just beyond those trees." he called back to her as they continued toward the safety of his shuttle. "That thing can't shoot us, can it?"

Gypsy shrugged. "Not sure. I ripped out as much wire as I could. Not sure what any of it did."

"Perfect..." Phelan muttered. He had this sudden impulse to puck her up over his shoulder and run like hell, but he figured she might not like that and might show him how much she didn't like it in places he'd rather not experience that amount of dislike. So he refrained, relaxing only when he saw the silhouette of his shuttle ahead.

As they neared it, he slowed down. "Keep going. If necessary, I'll cover you. I'll be right behind you." He meant it too. He was not stupidly, fatally noble. He had no intention of getting himself scragged by a pissed off shuttle, at least. But he wasn't going to take the risk that it scragged her either.

She ran with all she had her bags in tow. Closer, closer, they got closer until they reached the door. She tossed the bags in and leapt after them. Just as Phelan joined her the shuttle shook violently.

Thankfully, he was already on the floor. Also thankfully, he had leapt after her, rolling into the small ship just before whatever the hell that was. Quickly, he scuttled to the console and keyed the back hatch closed and the cloak on then crawled to the window facing the direction they'd come from to try and see what the hell had just happened. "What the hell was that?" he muttered more to himself than to her. "Apparently your wire-pulling missed a weapon," he mused, not quite happy about that. Maerynn was going to have his hide for damaging one of her shuttles.

"Apparently." She thought. "My engineering is rusty but can we use a magnetic jamming frequency to disable the psycho...I mean shuttle?"

"Well, fuck my life..." Phelan muttered under his breath as he scooted back to the forward controls. "These shuttles aren't really equipped for that sort of thing, and I'm no Engineer. It might just be best to get the hell out of Dodge," he told her. Preferably before the crazy-ass shuttle damages this one so I can't. He was already working the controls to start the engines and prepare for lift-off. With the cloak on, the other shuttle would, hopefully, not realize when, or at least where, they had gone. But was it safe to leave a half-crazed spacecraft lying about? He really didn't think so, but what could he do really? He'd have to report it and its whereabouts -- oh, he'd leave a warning buoy in orbit first to keep random ships away -- and see what the station commander wanted to do about it.

"Then let's get out of here while the thing still has its head in a cloud." She strapped herself in fully and waiting for them to clear the planet. It would be a short time from there until they could engage hyper-drive. "I hope the station we're on doesn't have a personality...this one is oddly based on an admiral's so I'm starting to worry on that account now."

Phelan lifted the shuttle off, cloaked, and headed it up into the atmosphere. Once on its way, he took his hands from the controls long enough to strap in before replacing them. "Nope, the station doesn't have an AI that i know of," he told her honestly, "though my boss sometimes plays jokes on us. She's a shapeshifter, so you never know what or whom she might be." He laughed a bit. The idea that the nutty-as-a-fruitcake shuttle's personality was based on an admiral's kind of scared him though. That meant that some admiral was that nuts. And that could be very bad indeed for the Union.

She could almost see the wheels turn in his head. She smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you for your help. I honestly do not know where I would have been without it."


Present Time

Gypsy snapped out of her memory. She decided to head out and find Phelan to thank him again for his assistance. It had been a rough few days and she was looking forward to starting her new life here on this Union station.

It was sure to be an adventure.

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