Everything's Stable Until it Isn't

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!

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!

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.

"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.

LC Quote
OOC:
Tamm did you make a second roll? or are you waiting for the GM to tell you to roll?

Well if we take take original roll on a D20New Abort Shutdown - (d20+2+1) resulting is 18 + 3 = 21, converted to 2D6 with 18 is 90% plus 15%, = 105% or 13 on 2D6.

New Restart roll - (d20+2+1) 13 + 3 = 16, converted to 2D6 with 13 (65%) plus 15% (+3) = 80% which converts to 8 on 2D6.

Per Tharrok:

Decherrek's program is designed as a 'quick-strike', to "atom bomb' the complex malware which is trying to shut down the MISS FORTUNE's Power Plant. It's initial effect seems to work; the power plant starts to recover with Llogan, Bronz, and Leilani trying to bring the control systems back on line (and then do a quick 'warm' restart(.

But then the virus does a sudden and unexpected resurgance, violently burning through the Power Plant controller. No longer stealthy, its obvious that the intention now is not subtle but just an out and out destructive strike.The Engineering Team is able to compensate quickly for the control system's multiple failures. "We can re-route that sub-routine here." "Oh, we have spares for those three junction nodes." "Hell, look here, the virus just short-circuited this one system, I can re-boot it..."

Decherrek, monitoring the cybernetics... "The virus self-destructed as it performed its last destructive instruction. I think it was designed to do so if countered. It will be hard to learn much more about it, but we can still try."

WITHIN 40 MINUTES the Power Plant is back on line, functioning normally. Gravitics can be brought back up to normal.

Tharrok settles back into his G-Couch as the gravity is restored. "Well, that’s quite a bit better. How long you think this will last? I don’t honestly trust it, I’d prioritize recharging the batteries and running as much air through the filters, just in case."

Tharrok looks over to LC then begins going over all of his readings, making sure everything stabilizes in the green and reports the results to LC.

"I just got off of sleep rotation, so I’ll take this six hour watch. You want a wake-up in six?". Tharrok’s tail wags slowly, a sign that he has begun to believe things might actually be stable for a few hours. "I'll double check the air/raft’s batteries, but they should be full. I’ll ask one of our engineers to rig a charger with an air gap just in case there’s some sort of ‘remnant’ code or ‘egg’ left behind."

He checks the inside atmospheric composition on his panel and the CO2 scrubber saturation and reports, "looks like the scrubbers are back online and only 10% degradation. Our air is currently at 5.5ppm

OOC:

(ill effects begin at 8ppm+ iirc)

and falling so as long as we don’t have another outage in the next 12 hours, we should be sitting very good if we go down again."

Tharrok’s hands caress the controls, changing settings to minimize power drain and maximize the charge going to the batteries. "One more recommendation… I’d keep power usage to a minimum for the rest of the flight. Maybe not for the passengers, but crew and cargo could operate at a lower power setting. Kind of a ‘cold camp’ kind of operation. Cold meals instead of hot ones. Hot Kaffe only. If there’s no misjump, we exit in just over 4 days, so I’m sure we could survive this and get a hot meal on Fornice." Tharrok frowns significantly… "Though it’s not my place to tell you or Decherrek how to do your jobs, I would, if I were you guys, go back to the bank and chew on their asses, errr, give them an earful… over their shipyard missing this drek!"

Tharrok does a double take, a shocked and dismayed look on his face… "But…. But… what about my nightly pup cup?"

Starts singing… " I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;

Once LC and everyone else finally vacates the Bridge, Tharrok settles in for the rest of his shift. He sets up some music for the Bridge, some Hot & Spicy, 3Daizy, Nordswhirl, and Spinward Consort.

Starlight and Shadow