[RFC][Story] Mission to Arcadia

[Dartz]

Musings...
A crewmember aboard Lun updates their blog.

Musings from the Sea of Stars. Post for 17/08/2024

So, about that little trip.

Well, it sounded good at first. A trip on a cruiser to a 'paradise' planet for a little amateur science in the deep ocean. But this is no pleasure cruise. I mean, really. We're on an old Russian ship, a Caspian Sea monster that was salvaged especially for the expedition. They've fitted it out with diving gear, and hired a dedicated crew to operate it. We even have a molecular exobiologist aboard to do real research.

I'm just a deckhand.

There's thirty of us on the crew, including some of the local BNF's and the diving team. There is no such thing as personal space. Most of us are split between two berthing compartments that have enough racks for half that which means sharing is mandatory. There's nothing like the feeling of getting into a sleeping bag still warm after someone's left it - it's a nasty kind of warm. And if your rack mate wears strong perfume or cologne, so do you.

There're two showers, combined with heads, which are only really intended for emergency decontamination because water's so scarce - so it doesn't take long for things to get really fenchy aboard. Mix that with the smell of amine scrubbers, electric ozone, paint, machine oils, burned fuel, bleach, farts and whatever last night's meal was to get an idea of what it smells like. It doesn't help that some people like to load up on perfume to eye-watering levels to mask their own BO.

The only food aboard are pre-packed MRE's, because there's so little space to spare. Most are nasty. And all the good stuff like sweets gets ratfucked. We took a week's cruise out around the belt just to get a feel for everything and the good stuff was gone after day one.

Being on this boat is proper fucking das-boot stuff.

The mission leader's that armoured cyber who leaves here, who takes care of some of the high-end management, with a bug up her thruster about changing peoples opinions of her. The boat's actual paper's-holding owner's her partner. Our Captain's actually ex-City Guard, so has no real time in command of a ship - the best way to describe her is angry, but fair. She's that racer who recently came out as biomodded, another victim of that race-fixing scandal a few months back

The XO, however, is the one with the whip. Lun's a Russian AI. She works us into the decks. Crash drills. Fire drills. Missile drills. Decompression drills. Flooding drills. Engine failure drills. Oh, and fuming drills. Medical emergency drills that required a rapid conversion of the mess into a surgery…. the list goes on.

Craziest of all was the decompression drill. That involves sealing off a compartment of the ship, getting a good hard vacuum outside. Then our friendly local combat cyborg vents the compartment while we sit strapped down in chairs. For the first time, it's just to get a feel for vacuum and what it does.

Hard Vacuum is a surreal experience, even with a counterpressure undersuit. There's a cold rush of escaping air that drowns out the screams, chased by a freezing silent mist. And then nothing except my own heatbeat in my ear, and the feeling like I'm about to burst inside. My chest and tonque are fizzling cold, while my skin feels oddly warm. And I have just enough time to marvel at the sensation before I pass out.

The aim is to get us used to vacuum enough to at least be able to do some things to help ourselves. The second time, we practice putting on PEBs so we can try rescue ourselves. Or finding a place to sit down and not crack our skulls if we pass out, so someone else can put on our PEBs.

Anyone without a mod also carries an automatic injector as an armband. If atmospheric pressure goes below the redline, and we stop moving for thirty seconds it triggers automatically in the hope that waving us before we're dead might keep us alive long enough to be found.

The fire drills are the worst. Hot, smokey and chaotic at best. We carry so much fuel and oxidiser that if a fire goes out of control, we're in real danger of exploding. Fire's the one thing we don't fuck around with here. You think the Cities are strict on open flames?

Still, parking above Kandor City, listening to KROK while running missile drills was fun enough for those who caught the joke. Unfortunately, there was no comradeship in Cuba, just a day's journey home again, followed by a ceremony where we were all given our telnyashka's.

For those not in the know, that's the traditional Russian navy striped jumper.

It's weird. It's made things a little more cliquish off the boat too. There's us on the boat, and everyone else. It wasn’t until recently that I realised I hadn't spoken to my friends in a long time - and these are people I moved out here with. I thought it might've been all the work we're doing, but more and more the boat crew seem to be hanging together, even away from training.

Maybe that's the idea.

I think we're the most highly trained and qualified 'civil' crew there is. This is navy-grade training.

This isn't really what I signed up for. I wanted a trip to Arcadia, not the whole 'In the Navy' experience. On the one hand, I feel like something real's been achieved - we've really done something together as a crew. It's almost fun. On the other, I feel a little bit tricked - this definitely isn't what I thought it'd be when I signed on the dotted line. And even if we're not officially a military force - just a 'professional' one - there's something about all this that just makes me feel uneasy.

It wouldn't take much to refit this ship for combat. How hard would it be to replace the dive-team and their hardware with some form of Space Marines? Or take replace the cockpit in the missiles with a guidance chip and warhead?

I think Lun's gone through a lot of trouble to bond us together as a crew? Why am I worried that someone will try and abuse that, to use us for something else when all this is done? There is something that's been bugging me.

I'm guessing you all know Jet Jaguar, right? Boskone-war combat cyborg with the Panzer Kunst, with a complete speed fetish. Does a science mission like this really sound like something a person like that would actually be interested in?

It seems like a lot of effort to go to, just to avoid being seen as a one trick pony.

Anyway, this time next month we'll be in Detroit for our final training and shakedown. We're planning a dive on the Edmund Fitzgerald. Then a week later, we're hopping out into the North Atlantic to visit the Titanic. I'm jealous of the dive team, honestly - to get to go all the way down there and stand on the actual deck of the Titanic in their Jupiter suits. You couldn't pay for an experience like that. With a little luck, I'll have pictures.

A month after that, I'll be on Arcadia, all the work comes to a head and my updates will drop off.

Next week's update , the results another progress check session with my counsellor. It's been a long road since the accident, but these last few weeks, I've been managing to feel almost normal again.

Until then, thanks for reading. Leave a comment, or +1 below in the usual space.

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?