Everything's Stable Until it Isn't

Oct 1, 2025 3:02 am
0200, May 23, 1115.

Jump to Fornice initiated at 20:30, May 21 1145. Just over 48 hours later the fragile equilibrium is in jeopardy!

Terry LeFrontaine and Bronz are awake and alert at the entrance to Adriana's Stateroom. The other passengers are presumably asleep in their staterooms, as should be most of the crew after hours of unrelenting effort. Quite a lot of information regarding the 'virus' has been pried loose, but the program is a tough nut, high tech, not easy to decode.

Decherrek has been working tirelessly on modifying an anti-virus program to recognize and attack the malware.

Adriana has continued to weave the energies in the Power Plant controls, staying deep in her trance-like state. Said Ma and Kayla Hong have oh-so-carefully kept the young woman cleaned up, and provided I.V. fluids and nourishment. And just enough stimulant pharmaceuticals.... so far its worked!
Oct 1, 2025 3:07 am
"I have an anti-virus program ready, Captain. With your permission, and perhaps with Engineer Llogan Tamm's approval too, I am prepared to send it into combat.

"I have read about your own experience with such a thing, L.C. Did you not help protect the Ship A.I. 'PAMELA' fight against a similar entity? Something called 'Big Mike', or am I mistaken? I think this will be similar, though not nearly so protracted. We must be ready to make modifications to the program 'on-the-fly', as humans sometimes say.

"All is as ready as Said Ma, Leilani, and I can make it. Are we ready?"
Oct 1, 2025 5:06 pm
LC Rains – Engineering Bay Uplink – Timestamp: 02:05 Local Ship Time, May 23, 1115

LC appears on the internal comm grid, his face drawn but steady, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned and shadows of jump fatigue under both eyes.

"All right. Let’s update the disaster ledger."

He leans into the feed slightly, rubbing at his temple with two fingers before continuing.

"Decherrek — good work. You and Leilani have brought this farther than I thought possible. I won’t pretend I’m comfortable with the next step.

We are, after all, preparing to unleash a foreign-coded strike program into the ship’s control systems... while in Jump.
That’s not just reckless. It’s a calculated risk against the sustained coherence of a gravitational singularity shaped around us like an eggshell.

If your anti-virus latches onto the wrong routines, interrupts synchronization protocols, or corrupts the power regulation buffers...
The Jump Bubble collapses. And we don’t get a second opinion. Just a spontaneous disassembly, followed by a very quiet funeral, conducted one molecule at a time."


A beat. He presses on, voice more measured now.

"You’re right about PAMELA. She wasn’t just a program — she was a person. The kind that learned, loved, wrote letters by hand, and once told me the color yellow made her feel nostalgic even though she’d never seen a sunrise.

Big Mike... was something else. A hostile intelligence embedded in the engineering lattice. Dangerous. Obsessive. Nearly erased her. She survived by merging with him — not defeating him. Became someone... different. Still PAMELA, mostly. But sharper. Scarred.

That was no virus hunt. That was a civil war inside a soul."


He exhales once, then lifts his comp and begins paging through encrypted fields.

"So yes, I understand the stakes. And I know what happens when you delay judgment with a ghost crawling through your codebase."

He looks up again — weary, but resolved.

"Engineer Tamm — you retain veto authority. If your instincts fire red, I’ll back your call. If they read green... then I’ll input the final authorization myself.

Decherrek, Leilani, Said-Ma — hold position. Bronz, Tharrok, prep fallback. We don’t move until all checks are lit."


LC pauses. The faintest grin curls one corner of his mouth.

"And if any of you start seeing dancing polygons, singing alert tones, or messages from dead relatives, don’t panic. Just forward them to me. I’ll log them under ‘Posthumous Hauntings – Engineering, Class II’.

Of course, if this whole fiasco does trace back to some noble patron’s petty grudge, ancestral dispute, or unresolved romantic disappointment...
Well — I suppose we’ll all just have to die knowing their family crest remained untarnished.

Right then. I’m standing by. Tamm? Anyone else care to weigh in before we poke the ghost with a stick?"
OOC:
Any response by anyone else? Are we all good to let Dechereek run his anti-virus code while we are in the Jump Bubble? Remember, LC is NOT an engineer.........
Last edited October 1, 2025 5:09 pm
Oct 2, 2025 10:05 pm
"Perhaps I have misunderstood your previous experience. I have garnered what I know from the Infotainment channels that dramatize such things. The Rile O'Billy network, for instance.

"I do not think this thing in our Power Plant controls is a self-aware A.I. But it is complex and probably capable of adaptation, of learning. A more primitive A.I. Sophisticated and multi-leveled.

"I will refrain from deploying our counter until and unless it becomes essential. And that determination should by yours and your crew. I had allowed my own curiosity about the outcome to get the better of my judgement."
Oct 2, 2025 10:50 pm
LC Rains – Galley Broadcast to Crew Terminals – 20:35, May 21, 1115
OOC:
Corrected time hack from my previous incorrect time hack
LC stands at the corner of the galley table, stylus in hand, datapad resting beside a mug of something dark and steaming. looking at Decherrek as he monitors the power control logs. LC's voice is low but pointed.

"Decherrek... You're not wrong. About the drama or the danger. And I’m glad to see you're applying a bit more of that Droyne restraint I hear so much about. Holding back the antivirus? Yeah I agree with you, that’s the right call. At least until we're sure it won't fry our teeth with the fillings still in."

"You and Leilani have built a countermeasure with teeth. But we need to know what happens if it bites into something vital. Something structural. Something sustaining the bubble we’re swimming in. Until the rest of the crew chimes in, it stays leashed."

He taps the stylus to the datapad and switches channels to the crew terminals with a flick of his stylus, keeping ship-wide messaging muted to avoid passenger curiosity. He speack at his datapad that builds the text message to the crew

"Tharrok, Bronz, Tamm, Leilani, Said-Ma—I want your thoughts. Not just a 'yea' or 'nay'. Give me what you see. What you fear. What you think we're missing. Then tell me what the hell we do next. Decherrek’s right to pause. Let’s earn the right to push play."

He sets the cup down and straightens slightly, looking at Tharrok.

"Tharrok, get the ship's watch back on— have Said-Ma and Kayla split 12-hour shifts, one on, one off to watch Adriana, the passengers, and the general mood. I want a report if a light flickers twice or the tea steams the wrong direction.

The rest of us will pull the normal 8-hour rotations for the next 120 hours of jump left. That gives us fifteen shifts, with each of us earning three shifts. Priority of work are plant monitoring, eating, sleeping, and checking in with Adriana's condition and her interface with the Power plant. The passengers should think we’re coasting through a luxury jump. And someone give Terry champagne before he files a 1-star review."


He leans back, expression darker, thoughtful, then adds the following to the crew wide text message to their hand comps.

"Finally—I want each of you to prep a post-Jump contingency. Assume worst-case. No Power Plant. No graceful emergence. Just batteries, backups, and blind luck. Where do we dock? What do we shut down? No wrong answers. Silent ones that kill."
OOC:
Need other player inputs if you will
He gives a slow nod to the screen.

"Rains out."

Later in jump LC will track down Decherrek and inquirer about Decherrek's thoughts about the Powerplant Virus and Jump emergence, but more importantly - what not to say (or to say/explain the how we came to discover the virus) about Andriana when they arrive at Fornice.
Oct 6, 2025 4:38 am
9 hours later.... 1100, May 23, 1115

Things appear unchanged. Said Ma and Tharrok wore themselves down but are resting. Llogan Tamm got some sleep and is back up and ready; takes over bridge watch. LC Rains has kept himself going on adrenelin and stims washed down with kaffe. Leilani has just relieved Bronz keeping an eye on Adriana. 'Terry' LeFrontaine was persuaded to bunk down and he's sleeping like the proverbial tree stump. Decherrek looks unfazed by the hours being awake and keeps fine-tuning his 'attack dog' anti-virus program.

Kayla Hong is back in the 'galley' making still another pot of kaffe while Shaky Telom and Thessa Ting make themselves sandwiches and trade speculations regarding the almost not-quite emergency that seems to be ongoing.

weee-oooh, weee-ooooh. An audible alarm sounds, then the gravity goes out. Then the lights flicker, but emergency power keeps them lit.

In Engineering and on read-outs on the bridge the indicators show the Power Plant going into an emergency shut-down process.

And in Adriana's stateroom, despite the IV feeding and stimulant medications; she collapses. She starts having violent seizures!
Oct 6, 2025 11:33 pm
Bronz had only just started toward his bunk, telling himself he’d earned some shut eye, when the alarm shrieked through the corridor. The gravity slipped out from under him a heartbeat later.

He caught the bulkhead, steadied himself, and for one long second and just listened, the way he used to when things went wrong and no one else had realized it yet. Then he glanced back toward Adriana’s cabin. His gut tightened, but Leilani was there. That would have to be enough.

He pushed off down the passage, boots catching half the time against the deck plating as the artificial gravity stuttered. If he passed LC, he didn’t break stride, he just gave him a flat look that said everything words wouldn’t. Told you so.

In Engineering, Bronz dropped into motion beside Tamm without a word, running diagnostics, isolating feeds, trying to see what was left to save. The old instincts kicked in, keep the plant breathing, find the fault, survive the next five minutes. Talking could come later.
OOC:
Assume aiding Tamm - if not use the engineering roll below.

Rolls

Engineering +2 + 1 (INT) - (2d6+2+1)

(22) + 3 = 7

Oct 7, 2025 12:49 pm
Engines and Reactor's Leilani understood, people not so much. Still she remembered enough of her training to do the basics, grabbing what she could to get the psyker comfortable. Beyond that she was all at sea, so to speak!

"Erm I could do with some help here" Personal comms would be viable for longer than they had at the very least
Oct 8, 2025 12:04 am
Tamm reaches for his harness and straps in. He looks over the control display & sees the reactor shutting down. Battery power kicked in within minutes but Tamm is too busy to release his straps.

The first thing Tamm does is try to stop the shutdown sequence. His next task is to restart the reactor.
OOC:
wow, the dice have been unkind!
GM NOTE:
OOC:
Shawn must be posting while tired or in D&D overload! Dice throw is 2d6 +2 Engineering Skill, and an additional +1 for Bronz's assistance. He is on bridge watch, but can quickly configure his work station to perform almost any computer-oriented Engineering task. In this case, trying to remotely 'abort' the shutdown sequence. I'd like to see a new dice roll, though!
Last edited October 8, 2025 12:05 am

Rolls

Stop Shutdown Sequence - (1d20+2+1)

(7) + 3 = 10

Restart Reactor - (d20+2+1)

(3) + 3 = 6

New Abort Shutdown - (d20+2+1)

(18) + 3 = 21

New Restart roll - (d20+2+1)

(13) + 3 = 16

Oct 8, 2025 1:33 am
Tharrok was in a deep sleep when the alarms went off, along with the gravity. Since the lighting was off in his staterooms, the emergency lighting doesn’t affect him. But the feeling in his gut as he finds himself in zero-G does the trick. He flips the light blanket toward the corner of his bunk and pushes off gently toward his personal locker. Pulling a clean jumpsuit out, he slides into it and pulls his boots on but leaves them unlaced for now. Pushing off gently toward the hatch, he catches himself on the combing and thumbs the emergency release for the hatch, knowing that now that it is on batteries, best practices are to manually open the hatch.

Once the hatch is open, he kicks off toward the bridge. He enters his emergency access code into the lock and manually opens the bridge hatch. Sliding in, he manually closes the hatch and pushes off for pilot seat. Sliding in, he punches the comms and selects crew-only option. "Pilot on the bridge and ready." He begins his emergency troubleshooting checklist.
Oct 8, 2025 1:43 am
LC Rains – Bridge / Engineering Comms Link – 11:02, May 23, 1115

LC had been standing behind Decherrek, staring at the data feeds rolling across the upper bridge displays — raw diagnostic streams from Engineering, the power plant sub-systems, Adriana’s biometrics. The Droyne’s calm focus was almost unnerving; LC envied it. His own hands were steady, but his eyes… those were running on stims and fury.

"You’ve been tuning that code for hours, Decherrek. Fine work — but what’s your read, really? What’s Andriana chance at keeping going through jump??? You think this virus we have int he powerplant is adaptive, can it learn? Can it know she’s the one holding it at bay?

Decherrek doesn’t immediately answer. LC opens his mouth to push further — and that’s when the deck lurches. The gravity field collapses. The ship lifts around him like a dying breath, and LC instinctively kicks off toward the nearest console, catching the upper handhold just as his mug spins past his shoulder, scattering a spiral of black kaffe droplets spinning out of the mug like an accusation.

"Bloody hell—"

Emergency lighting snaps in. The status panel blooms red: POWER PLANT SHUTDOWN SEQUENCE INITIATED. LC looks down toward Decherrek, voice low, grim, and decisive.

"Looks like the decision’s made for us. Deploy it. Now."

He flicks the ship-wide comms live, voice carrying steady and sharp through the static hum of emergency power.

(calm voice) "All hands, this is the Captain. We’ve lost gravity, while the crew restores gravity please ensure you remain in your cabin and in your acceleration seat.
LC switches to crew only
Okay Gang the Power Plant’s in a forced shutdown cycle. Engineering, I need a status report, now. That includes current battery levels. Tamm, confirm: is the restart viable before the full collapse, or does the shutdown sequence have to complete first?"

"Decherrek’s deploying the anti-virus. It’s our only shot at halting the shutdown mid-cycle before the plant cold-soaks. If he’s right — and I sincerely hope the gods of binary are listening — it might stabilize before we lose containment on the main regulators."

He braces himself on the console as the deck hums beneath him, lights flickering again in a slow, nauseating pulse. His tone stays dry, even as his eyes scan the readouts like a man watching a slow-motion crash.

"Leilani, status on Adriana — is she breathing? Keep her alive, that’s an order. Said-Ma, I need you in that cabin yesterday."

"Bronz, get eyes on the physical plant connections. If you see anything glowing that shouldn’t be, cut it. Tamm, you’ve got the restart sequence — if Decherrek’s program buys us a window, you take it. Otherwise, we let the plant shut down clean and pray the backups don’t blink out."

He glances back to Decherrek, whose clawed hands are dancing over his interface, running the countermeasure into the main feed. LC’s voice drops, quieter now, but no less firm.

"All right, Decherrek. Show me your bite."

The bridge lights dim again, a low vibration running through the hull as code meets code. LC reaches to his ship coveralls and pulls the securing teather and snap links it to his position in the bridge. His grip tightens on the console rail, the faintest smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth.

"If anyone sees a bright light, don’t walk toward it. That’s the reactor trying to kill us politely."

He steadies himself, eyes locked on the status display.

"Rains out."

looking at Decherrek
"Did I ever tell you that this was a terrible week...."
OOC:
Actions
1. Deploy Decherrek's Anti-Virus
2. Battery Status - with question is there enough back-up battery power to last the remaining 111 hours of Jump
3. Have Said-Ma take over for Leilani so Leilani can get to Engineering or at least a ship's console to configure it as an Engineering station to help out Tamm and Bronz
4. Monitor actions at the bridge with Decherrek
Oct 8, 2025 1:51 am
Packratt66 says:

Once the hatch is open, he kicks off toward the bridge. He enters his emergency access code into the lock and manually opens the bridge hatch. Sliding in, he manually closes the hatch and pushes off for pilot seat. Sliding in, he punches the comms and selects crew-only option. "Pilot on the bridge and ready." He begins his emergency troubleshooting checklist.
LC looks up from his position
"Glad to see you made it to this hours Cluster fuck. Decherrek is deploying his specially coded anti-virus as he tells me something about seeing the the ones and zeros. Either it will work or we will be without a powerplant...or we will finally find out how the jump bubble works, manually. "
LC grins a bit
"Other than that it is peachy, seriously glad to see you back on the bridge. You were missed."
Oct 8, 2025 4:24 am
(as NPC)
Said Ma gets the emergency alert and hauls herself from her bunk. Grabs a med-kit and magnetic boots on her way into the passage. Then does the 0-G shuffle to the ladder and as quickly as possible up to the passenger deck. ('up' not being particularly helpful terminology at the moment).

"Ah good work, Lielani! Status report?" (Adriana continues to have seizures, but relaxes and breathes in between. Med sensors show her blood oxygen level low, but not critical. Pulse very rapid. Brain activity very weird!)

'Terry' LeFrontaine looks in from the stateroom hatch. He looks worried and anxious on top of his exhaustion. But does not interfere with first aid efforts.
Oct 9, 2025 4:12 am
"Didn’t realize I was gone so long, Boss. Still, it’s an interesting way to wake up…" Tharrok’s furry hands work the controls bringing up the readouts and displays he needs to try to work out what the odds of making J-Space exit when and where they want to be and whether they’ll have any power left when they do. After a moment or two, he says, "Well, we are stable for now. But as you know, all systems tend to decay into entropy if left without corrective input, which needs energy. It’s only a matter of time. For now, our batteries and gyros are stable. I’ll continue to monitor for any degradation. But without the power plant, it’s only a matter of time."

Suddenly, Tharrok is struck by a thought. He quickly moves his hands over the systems, trying to confirm what he’s thinking.
[ +- ] GM
Oct 11, 2025 1:50 pm
OOC:
Howdy guys 🤠
My phone has been overheating so if I disappear for a bit that's the cause.
I guess I need a new phone, eh?
Oct 11, 2025 2:09 pm
Quote of LC
"Tamm, confirm: is the restart viable before the full collapse, or does the shutdown sequence have to complete first?"

"Tamm executing restart sequence now. Failed, crap!
One more time. Reactor shutdown aborted, Captain!"
OOC:
The GM asked for a second roll, see above.
The second abort shutdown roll is successful!
Oct 11, 2025 6:44 pm
LC Rains – Bridge / Emergency Comms – 11:06, May 23, 1115

The hum of emergency lighting and the distant whine of cooling systems are the only sounds on the bridge save for the rapid tapping of LC’s stylus against his datapad. He’s secured to the bridge rail, eyes flicking between the power control readouts and the live status from the Engineering feeds.

"Well done, Tamm. Hopefully that abort saves our arses—this time. Don’t close that restart panel yet."
OOC:
Tamm did you make a second roll? or are you waiting for the GM to tell you to roll?
LC glances toward Decherrek, watching the Droyne’s unblinking focus as the anti-virus deploys.

"Still no guarantees. Decherrek’s code is chewing into the command stack, but if this thing mutates or reboots, we may not get a second chance. And our ace in the hole—Adriana—is out cold. Which means whatever she was doing to keep the ghost at bay just dropped offline."

LC reconfigures his console to display a security control panel in a window display. He punches in a series of overrides, accessing the internal surveillance cache from the LeFrontaine stateroom.

"Okay, here’s a thought. We’ve got sixteen hours of Tri-Vid feed from the room where Adriana was… projecting whatever this interface was. She was doing something real, something patterned, something with rhythm. If we can parse the feed, decode her physical gestures and whatever overlays were visible—we might be able to reconstruct what she was doing to override the virus. Hell, maybe even spot what it was targeting."

LC calls up a rotating display of the footage and provides the feed of the room to Tamm, Leilani, Bronz, Tharrok, and Decherrek. He accelerates playback with motion tracking on Adriana’s hands and face, running visual correlations between the data spikes and the visible inputs. LC overlays the feed with sensor logs and data point markers, comparing what he knows of the ship’s command architecture.

"Tharrok, and Decherrek—you’re good with patterns. Get in here and eyeball this with me. Bronz, Tamm—anything in this look familiar to plant-side command schema? Leilani, if there’s even a whisper of powerplant harmonics or EM shadows, tag it. Turn her ghost ballet into a playbook. If she danced the virus into a corner, I want to waltz it into a coffin."

He takes a moment, glancing toward the room feed where Said-Ma is tending Adriana with clinical precision.

"She bought us time. Let’s not waste it. AND We’ve got 111 hours to Fornice if this bubble holds. If it doesn’t, we’re riding dead metal through a blind abyss. Let's move."

He toggles the bridge lighting back to its dim emergency standby, watching the footage play again—faster now, but overlayed with sensor logs and system calls. Slowly, methodically, LC begins marking the pattern timestamps.

"Let’s see what secrets you were whispering to the machine, love. Let’s steal them back."

"We’ve got 111 hours to Fornice if this bubble holds. If it doesn’t, we’re riding dead metal through a blind abyss. Let’s move."
OOC:
Actions:

LC accesses, reviews with the team very quickly the 16 hours of Tri-Vid footage of Adriana in LeFrontaine’s stateroom.

Cross-references visual gestures and overlays with ship power and command logs. Overlaying the feed with data point markers.

Requests crew input for pattern recognition and system command correlations. (adds to any rolls below?????)

Seeks to reconstruct or simulate Adriana’s influence to counter the virus.

Roll for Computer (skill 1, INTB +1, 2D6+2) to figure this out.
Roll for analysis of virus behavior regarding the shutdown (2D6 + INTB +1) to determine current objective and counter strategy.

Rolls

Roll for Computer to figure this out. - ((2D6+2))

(32) + 2 = 7

Roll for analysis of virus behavior regarding the shutdown to determine current obje - ((2D6+1))

(42) + 1 = 7

Oct 11, 2025 7:29 pm
LC Quote
OOC:
Tamm did you make a second roll? or are you waiting for the GM to tell you to roll?
OOC:
GM called, Tamm rerolled both his attempt to abort the shutdown & failing that, to reboot the plant. Rolls were 21 & 16. I assume both rolls are high enough for success but only the abort roll matters.
Oct 11, 2025 11:33 pm
OOC:
did you roll D20 or 2D6?
Oct 12, 2025 12:19 am
OOC:
oops! Rerolls here.

Still crappy. 8-(
Last edited October 12, 2025 12:20 am

Rolls

Reroll Abort - (2d6+2+1)

(13) + 3 = 7

Reroll Restart - (2d6+2+1)

(22) + 3 = 7

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