2467 Crescent Expanse: Warp Lane 7 Arc — Ship Navigation

[kermit]

Bridge Memo: Ship Navigation

Crescent Expanse: Warp Lane 7 — Week 1

Hi Command and Bridge Crew,

A pressing issue needs to be addressed now that everyone has recouped after that ensnarement in the pirate system: the ship's navigation. Our emergency bluespace jump has sent us way off course into a region we have no navigational data on.

The SCCV Horizon's current position is Berkley 73 system, located along Warp Lane 7. Infrastructure is nil with zero nav data; we are in the dark. On top of this, our supplies and phoron reserves do not account for our distance off-course.

I need not mention the pirate cruiser that is still pursuing us — hopefully, destroying the bluespace tracking beacon they had will slow them down enough.

The most immediate warp lane we have data on and that connects to the greater Spur is Warp Lane 1. However, the sensors suite sustained damage by a pirate anti-ship mine while evading the cruiser, as such we are unable to fully map out Warp Lane 7 to identify a route onto Lane 1.

Attached is the data we do have, as well as fuel & supplies manifests.

Routed via internal relay. Composed by Virgil AI.

Attachments:

• sensorscan_5722_2467-08-30-(Annotated).ndf:

Spoiler

Ship Name: The Malebranche

Ship Class: Bahzong-class Light Attack Cruiser (Heavily Modified) — Original class by ASSN c.2282; Modifications by unknown shipyard

Ship Size: 194 meters length, 84 meters beam, 42 meters height

Propulsion: Heated Chemical Propulsion (Unknown Modified Design) — No phoron detected in thruster signature; highest observed speed approx. 4.0 gm/h

FTL Drive: Heavy-Duty Warp Drive (Unknown Modified Design) — No bluespace capabilities

Sensors: NT2401 Sensors Suite (Modified) — Highest observed detection range approx. 4 grids

Armament: 3x HI-M96 Mining Blasters (Forward-facing Hardpoints; Modified), 1x KA-2461 Francisca Rotary Gun (Damaged)

Escort: 2x Modified Camel-class Light Freighters (Both refitted with 2x point defence flak cannons and 1x rotary gun)

Assessment:

A century old, Solarian Bahzong-class light attack cruiser, since resurrected with cobbled together scrap, laden with ill-advised modifications, and only equipped with a variety of souped up mining blasters and PDCs. There is absolutely no taking this on alone. However, being outdated and mostly salvaged parts, it moves at a sluggish pace and has a weak sensor range — it can be out-run or skirted around.

The Malebranche's escort are likely to make quick work of any shuttles that attempt boarding actions. However, if the Malebranche is deprived of its escort, it may encounter supply issues of its own.

With cunning navigation however, it may be possible to avoid a second confrontation with the Malebranche entirely.

• lanechart_2467-08-30.ndf
• operations-manifest-phoron.ndf
• operations-manifest-supplies-(overview).ndf

——

OOC: This is a quick, little minigame that lets you steer the Crescent Expanse miniarc.

The Game:

• The Horizon can move 1 point along red lines (a warp gate connection) at no cost per week (between events).
• The Horizon can move up to 2 points in any cardinal direction, regardless of red line/warp connection, at the cost of expending 1 bluespace jump budget.
• Where/how the Horizon moves is decided in this thread.
  • If there are multiple suggestions, it'll be down to most heart-reacted suggestion, but maybe we'll figure out a better way as we go.
  • You don't need an active Bridge/Command character to take part. However, IC suggestions from active Bridge/Command characters have an intrinsic +1 heart. OOC suggestions are accepted from any player.
  • The decisions are made on Tuesday, so there is time for appropriate event planning. No decision in this thread means I'll be asking the first person I see on Discord or in Deadchat on the day..
• Points marked with ? exhibit strange signals: they may present opportunities to resupply or end up in danger.
  • This doesn't mean an event won't occur if you enter a system without a ?; events in ?-less systems will be more low-intensity Horizon-side events.
• A small sprinkle of clues are already available, for those with keen ears (and more may be found during events).

The Main Goal:

• To locate the system with a warp gate leading to Warp Lane 1. Hint: It will be on the peripherary.
  • To do so before the supply situation becomes too dire...
  • To hope the Malebranche doesn't catch up too fast...

Questions welcome (though preferred by Discord to avoid cluttering this game thread).

Edited Monday at 14:17 by kermit
clarification on when the decision is made (Tuesday)

[NerdyVampire]

Victor Jenkins (Scientist):
"I don't know much about ships navigation, but this seems like a sort of puzzle. I'd say we should move to Beta Marax II first, and then prepare to bluespace jump to CES 142. If the Malebrance operates with the same capabilities as us, we need to stick to locations where they can't surprise us with a bluespace jump of their own. Hopefully Beta Marax II will give us some sort of clue about where the warp gate is..."

Edited Sunday at 10:53 by NerdyVampire

[UltraNumeron]

(Image taken from TCJ)

[greenjoe]

Narasi Perlyalna'Shirani (Bridge crew):
Moving to Beta Marax II at first seems a good choice, they should see what that signal has for them, and then from there, decide if to move to Beta Marax I or Berkley 72.

[JuneauQT]

Elena Ashpole (Bridge Crew):
 

"I mean, like... we wanna go to places where there's stuff, right? Like... obviously all this space is totes unexplored, and we don't know where anything is... but you should always bet on the signals, right?

Liiiiiiike... if we went to Beta Marax II, then Beta Marax I, and then Xar'qui 52 that'd give us wayyyyyy better chances of finding something useful, right? Like.... we need phoron suuuuuuper bad right now, and I don't think we can get it from those pirates... I watched this reallllly old show about a space exploring crew that got lost once, so I can be pretty sure that if you're lost and don't know what's going on then going to distress signals is suuuuuuper smart!

Or at least you don't have anything better to try your luck on..."

[Nagito Komaeda]

Osisra Devorask, Executive Officer:

"We've ourselves next 'no clue what the fuck we're going 'be dealing with. But, my stance is that we're best off investigating signals and employing crew expertise if we've the supplies. Charting a general course 'Beta Marax II' seems a recurring theme, for good reason in me opinion. If there's any point where we're best equipped 'deal with threats, 't is now. Equally true, if there's any point where we can expend resources 'get more in our stocks, it's now."

"The best we can do while in any given sector is host salvage ops as much as we can. Sites should be logged and scavenged as effectively as possible, which will require coordination from Operations and 'neering, together with the Bridge. We'd be best assessing our situation and acting accordingly after a jump from 'Beta Marax II' in the direction of 'Berkley 72', where we can decide on if we're needing 'push through a bluespace jump or nae."

[Zelmana]

Capt. Sean Brianne

"What we need now is some stability. While I am sure that looking into the nearest signals in the void are worth looking into, we need to get out ahead of the storm on our stern. In a system with so many frequencies, the trailing vessel is likely just as confused as us. Straight galactic north may seem contrary to sound logic, but it means another week of salvaging from the local system, repairs, and strategy. Hell, maybe even some intelligence. In my tenure, a steady hand pays off. We should first move like a bishop, and then like an opening pawn."

"Malebrance may have similar capabilities than us, but at the end of the day they think like slipjack pilots. While we're able to use the Warp Lanes, we should. Keeping our direction Galactic North brings us into more quiet space, buying us some time to salvage, even if it is not near these signals. Xar'qui 51 may give us enough supplies, but more importantly navigating there is less resource intensive due to the Warp Lane. That, and it positions us for our next move after we've had time to lick our wounds. Delving straight into another fight may be a death sentence, or cause us to prematurely need to emergency warp, and I don't think our engines could take that heat. After some recuperation, perhaps continuing Galactic North towards the then-nearest signal in two weeks time would be wise.

"CES 146 allows us to investigate a signal after some brief repairs from potential supplies in Xar'qui. Pending how things go in CES 146, we can then jump to CES 144, by expending enough fuel for a longer distance jump, or take on additional risk of exploring CES 142, which we should only do if CES 146 brought about useful supplies or information. Then again, that's some time away, and maybe our route will change entirely.

I've uploaded a potential plan below for your consideration."

Attachment: lanechart_2467-08-31_briannecomments.ndf

[NewOriginalSchwann]

All hands,

Allow me to first extend my sincerest felicitations as a member of our command staff: you have performed to the highest standards expected of our staff, and done so in an exceptionally difficult situation. A lesser crew would have failed to rise to this occasion, and found themselves prisoners or worse. Be proud of your efforts and our victory!

However, know the path ahead of us is not an easy one. We are far off of our course and the pirates remain an active, capable threat. We cannot afford to dawdle, as doing so would risk not just our ship and mission, but our lives as their cruiser is far more combat-capable than our vessel.

Yet hope is not lost. Through our efforts we have slipped the attention of the pirates and their cruiser. This is our prime advantage and we would be fools to squander it. Thus, I am recommending we immediately perform a bluespace jump to Beta Marax I to confuse our pursuers.

In the meantime I strongly recommend you, as members of this vessel’s crew, take the time to familiarize yourself with your colleagues. They are your best hope of survival and a return to civilized space. We cannot, in this most dire circumstance, afford to lose ourselves to our petty differences. As the Goddess dictates, “to lie is to sow embers; to betray us to sow salt.” In trying times, we must trust in one another regardless of our personal differences.

 

Faithfully,

Doctor Marianne Frauke Minamoto di Trevisani, Chief Engineer

[dessysalta]

The room is cool, still scraped and no less than "dinged up" from all of the commotion just a night before. Your hands, now smooth and burdened with the anxiety of aftermath and no longer shaking from the rumbling of your radio and gunfire, find the terminal's side and press down the button to boot. It whirrs, sputters, and then finally turns on. You briefly wonder if the engineers will get around to fixing it, seeing as they have their work cut out for them for the next few weeks. You dismiss the thought and focus on the task at hand; a few flicks of your fingers, and you play the tape. It's a holovid, saved locally. Records show it was recorded only an hour ago.

First is the map, with a few colorful indicators here and there that estimate fuel cost and supply usage. A sigh weaves its way out of you. It's several weeks less than you were expecting, and your stomach rumbles at the idea of being stranded. Before you can navigate to the sectors themselves and order deep-scans, a camera overlay awkwardly slides on top of the projection.

Kira E. Vazquez, Head of Security:

"Good lord, what the hell did I miss while I was down here?"

The short-haired Mictlani woman is still half-dressed, in fact dressing herself as she turns on the camera, funneling herself into a black tank-top and adjusting her shades. She hasn't showered in a few days from the looks of her hair, with a prominent bruise on her shoulder. She's still in her corporate apartment, with all the Solarian paraphernalia you'd expect.

"Listen," She grunts, leaning against the doorway with her good arm as she bandages the purple-black splotch. "I've been down this road before, and it doesn't end well. Shit, I'd say it ends pretty badly if we don't play our cards right," As soon as she's finished, she walks off-screen for a few seconds. By the time she returns, she's wearing her iconic authority cap and holding a beer. The label is Virklunder, a limited edition bottle given some space creature or another plastered on the front. "So lemme give you my elevator pitch."

The console lets out a few unhappy blips as it pans to the pirate cruiser, then hums more casually upon flicking to Beta Marax II. The commander points a finger at the camera, and on top of the map appears an away-facing hand gesturing to the sector. The holograms are a lot more defined than the shallow camera view plastered overtop. You can see the scars on her knuckles.

"Here. Let's be honest, we've got just about fuck and all in the way of supplies from hereon, but as we are now is probably the best we're going to be for the foreseeable future. Even counting derelicts or whatever shoddy, half-failing, staffed-by-a-zombie stations, it's a near-zero chance of surpassing our current shortage."

Kira pauses to take a sip, breathing out from her nose as the disgruntled expression softens a bit. 

"So, we hit the occupied sectors hard. I don't know what those signals are—could be an oasis as much as it could be hivebots—but if we lounge about in these coming weeks, eating our way to the floor, we'll be in even worse condition when we inevitably come into another gang of idiots wanting to poach us. We'll run a course from Marax-Two, to Marax-One, hit a jump to Berkley-Seventy-One, and then shift over to Xar'Qui-fifty-two."

She pauses and lets it sit, and as she does the system map runs a few calculations; the console hums, buzzes, and then shudders as the hologram updates with the proposal. Beta Marax II, Beta Marax I, jump diagonally to Berkley 71, resume course at Xar'qui 52.

"It's risky," The commander takes another sip of her beer. "But if we head to two empty sectors and lose the food we have, we'll be fighting on empty stomachs and half-wits. Better to floor it while we still have the option, yeah?"

The holomap distorts, crinkles, then disappears. What remains is the flat camera view, expanding a bit to allow for a more crisp image of Vazquez, who's setting her beer down in favor of a cigarette. Faint groaning can be heard from a body in the background—given the golden hair, it looks like her wife.

"Don't forget: We're still the Horizon. That's the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate. We've got plenty of manpower and guns. For now." One last pause, then a sigh. "Let's make use of 'em before we get eaten alive by those pricks back South of us."

As the camera, too, flickers and threatens to cut out, the commander mutters under her breath: "Mierda."

The holovid finishes, pausing on the last frame before finally fading back to the desktop.

[FlamingLily]

The camera switches to yet another speaker. Dr. Lillian Nyström, EngD. She flicks through papers and printouts, rubbling her temples, before speaking.

 

"Marax Two. I think that's our play for the first week. Got a signal, accessible by warp while we've got it. Gives us a followup to two more signals if we need more supplies - and right now we absolutely do. Three weeks will go fast. Right now I don't think we can afford to play it so safe as to hit Xar'qui 51, nor can we afford to burn our precious bluespace supplies immediately. Marax two gives us the chance for more supplies without too much investment.

The Malebranche is the problem, it's hard to tell how quickly they'll give chase, but... they don't have a bluespace drive. They'll probably be a warp jump away from us after we head for Marax Two, but I can't imagine that warp drive they've got jury rigged in there can beat the speed of a full warp gate. At some point here, we have to put some distance, I agree. I don't think we should jump the gun here. We need to play our limited jumps carefully here, and either CES 146 and Marax 1 get us caught in a corner. Marax 2 gives us options, and that's what we need."

 

She puts the printouts down, rubbing her temples again. "I need a drink."

The camera shuts off.

[FabianK3]

IC statement

MSG-CRC: 9e126da28250bdb37077145c0c2b4ac13fb233a4
AUTH-ID: Bradley Knight
AUTH-STATE: VERIFIED
TIMESTAMP: 15704690275
FROM: Bradley Knight, Atmospheric technician (Heph)
TO: Visolela Kuvanga, Chief engineer (SCC)
TITLE: RE: Status of propulsion and C-Goliath Drive
-----

As per your request, we had another look on the status quo of our current means of propulsion.
We used up a pretty big charge with the manual bluespace jump tonight, we are currently capable of three further jumps before we lack the moderator composition to execute any other meaningful jump.
Propulsion on the other hand looks good: Phoron supplies are good enough to give us a continuous burn for the next weeks.

Ilina, Roebuck and myself went through non-scheduluded maintenance after this mess to keep the thrusters operating at a higher efficiency while we set off away from the hostile cruiser.
From the speed we have observed of the cruiser, we should be able to keep it at arms length as long as we don't take any larger breaks anywhere. We are faster, but only marginally in this regard.

Concerning your question about next jump availability: We prepared a second charge for the drive that we didn't use up yet this night, meaning we can execute another jump in less then an hour of notice. I would suggest we do.
If we set course to CES 146 utilizing a jump, we might get lucky enough for the cruiser to lose partial track - Maybe they are incompetent enough to take a wrong turn, giving us more time.
When we made some distance, we also have the time to checkout CES 146, CES 142 and Vela in that direction. Let's look if there is a way out of this infested region in the galactic north.

Frustrating thought to be running away from pirates, years ago they would've been the ones running.
Where is the SAF when you need them.

Let me or the team know if you require any other details from Atmos,
Bradley Knight

OOC plan

Bluespace jump to CES 146, investigate system → burn to CES 142, investigate system → burn to Vela, investigate system → Re-evaluate situation, hope for region exit in the galactic north / utilize remaining resources to evade and move.

Edit: Grammer

Edited Monday at 12:55 by FabianK3

[Zelmana]

Capt. Sean Brianne
 

The scanline tormented visage of Brianne tunes in. While he still manages to look put together in a corporate-approved Soleil suit, a slight Martian accent reveals his roots, betraying him.

"Commander, while I admire your gung-ho attitude, the fact of the matter is your plan is not feasible. It's impossible for our engines to make a jump like that from Beta Marax I to Berkley 71. Remember, the star chart above is just a representation of the overall section of the spiral we're in. Diagonals on the chart aren't necessarily the same distance as the cardinal directions on this map.

Additionally, I would also caution going all-in on hopes that our very next encounter is a good one. There is time, and space, to get some valuable rations from some of the quieter systems here. Utilizing the warp lanes while we still have them is a part of my plan I hope all consider. It may give us the edge we need upfront. However, if we're adamant on spending our precious fuel, we could go straight to CES 146 as Engineer Knight suggested. I would be hesitant to go straight to another frequency-broadcasting system right after investigating it, however. It would depend on how things go in CES 146, as my plan previously outlined.

Don't place your faith in a singular, unchanging plan. Suggestions should implement alternative routes if things go south."

[Snowy1237]

Dr. Sylvia Ewart, Chief Engineer:

"While I appreciate that Captain Brianne, Commander Vazquez and Technician Knight want to plan for the long term, I fear we do not have the luxury for exact long-term planning due to the fact that not every system is guaranteed to have a warp lane connection to all adjacent systems. We will only find out which warp lanes are charted from any system when we arrive there. I am hesitant to rule out any options due to the fact that we have very little information, but I will suggest we investigate as many systems with signals as we can, we need all of the information we can get right now."

[dessysalta]

Kira E. Vazquez, Head of Security:

"Appreciate the responses and comments regarding my ideas. For some clarification: I'm suggesting we perform a long-range jump once we get to the diagonal; I spoke with a couple technicians up top and they told me it'd take two of the three or so leaps in our budget, all things bein' equal. I think leaving one in our reserves once we're halfway through the system should be fine enough, and it's unlikely we don't find a gate system to get us the hell out of here in that amount of time. S'pecially not if we're hittin' the ones with signals first and foremost.

"Still, we can maybe funnel in some supplies from derelicts—but I've been in barely-habited space before, and when we're talking providing for a cruiser that has several thousand lives aboard, the idea is that we pick up anything that isn't nailed down and come back with a hammer. Except with that gaggle of fun-runners behind us, we won't have any time to come back at all. Radio transmissions, dyin' or lively, means real activity for better or worse. Where there's still people, we can get more than poor meals and scrap metal.

"I need to emphasize that the reason ships of our caliber are able to last so damn long is because we find a place to hunker down, that or we don't dilly-dally. Can't do the former, gotta do the latter. Like I said, I foresee us using up food and ammo even in the quieter parts of the spiral, and if we're out by the time we come across a real threat...

"Tch. Well, we know what happens next. So let's not take the passive route."

[meep109]

Xim'Eq Lixuq, Engineer:

"Pay attention to the local analog signals. They hold important clues. I believe I saw something about a resupply on CES-144 on the frequency? You can access them through the analog radio. One's usually in the bar. Thank Az'ki Rasoso for figuring that out!" 
"I am also attaching a list of ship names I've overheard when listening to what I think are the pirate's radio:
 

Man on the Moon

 

ICV Penthesilea

 

Purple Fields

 

No Gods No Kings

 

Black Hegeranzi?"
"Also, the radio mentioned something about Skrell precense, probably pirates in one of the Xar'qui systems. Be careful with that!"

[kermit]

TO: Command, Bridge Crew
FROM: Automated Bridge Notices
SUBJECT: Bridge Notice: Flight Plan Update

MESSAGE BODY:
A flight plan update has been made.

The SCCV Horizon is now routing to BETA MARAX II via WARP GATE TRANSIT.
Estimated total transit time: 5 DAYS.

Please make the appropriate preparations.