[u][b]||N1-B [i]Romanova[/i]_[/b][/u] Kapitan Utkin tore off the computer printout, reading the latest news from the damage assessment and control efforts. Kapitan-leytenant Volkov had managed to secure help from several unidentified spacecraft, and with luck, engineering would have the spare plasma duct to patch the breach. The force field generator, meanwhile, was in considerably worse condition. The gas from the plasma duct had flooded the compartment, effectively preventing movement further aft toward the munitions stores until it could be vented. As Utkin turned from the small computing station jammed into the side of the passageway, several spacemen running to the bridge nearly bowled him over. Ambling after them onto the bridge, he caught the tail end of a hurried conversation between the radio operator and one of the hapless spacemen that had almost knocked him over. “Da, this is Greek like my father spoke! I can translate,” one said. “Except some parts are garbled. Shouldn’t be a problem, though.” It sounded like Utkin’s damage reports could wait. Commander Venera glanced over the scrawled translation, struggling to make out the poor handwriting. Apparently the ship - the [i]Columbia[/i] - had been requesting ID and… something about lemons. She frowned and considered whether or not to institute a mandatory handwriting seminar. The second page of the transmissions was one half of a conversation between the [i]Columbia[/i] and another ship. Commander Venera was certain that Volkov could use the young spaceman. Before he went, however, she responded to the alien ship’s request. “Transmit message to Columbia in Greek: Thank you for your assistance. This is the N1-B [i]Romanova[/i] of the glorious Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” [u][b]||Exterior, N1-B [i]Romanova[/i]_[/b][/u] Volkov received another maser. Command had finally gotten its act together and they could speak alien now. It was a little late. 10 cosmonauts were already hauling out a large sheet of scrap metal to patch the hole in the plasma duct. Volkov waved the boxy alien vessel closer in, indicating the plasma gas billowing into space. Though the pressure had decreased, the gas was still powerful enough to prevent any practical number of cosmonauts from holding the plate against the hull so it could be welded. “Volkov to aliens: use Box to hold patch down on duct, we weld edges at same time.” He waited patiently for command to translate and retransmit the message to the alien ship. Meanwhile, he got on with signalling the ship with his gloves, indicating what he wanted. [u][b]BS-14 Battlestar [i]Columbia[/i][/b][/u] “Columbia, Hotshot. They’re waving us in and on the wireless they’ve requested we approach in order to use the Raptor to hold down a patch. Please advise.””This is Columbia Actual, do it. They’re the only guys out here that have anything recognizable. They’ve also just thanked us for the help and identified themselves. We don’t know who they are but we’ll find out. Continue your mission.””Aye sir.” He looked back at Echo. “You ready to kiss this ugly fraker?””I’ve dated worse.””I’m sure you have, yet you always say no to the Chief.””Shut up.””Yes sir.” He moved the Raptor in, throttling up the tiniest but. As they got closer the engineers from Columbia took hold of the metal plating form these other people and moved it below the Raptor. The Raptor then lowered its miniature airlock and sealed itself onto the metal plate so it didn’t need to actually push down upon with the underside of the hull and risk deshaping it. The engineers navigated themselves closer to the Raptor and hooked themselves on, waving the others out of the way. Once they had moved the Raptor navigated itself, just showing how maneuverable it was for a flying box until the patch covered the breach. “This is Hotshot, we’ve matched the ships roll. You’re good to go.” With that he watched as the engineers streamed from the side of the ship down to the patch. Some of them welded along the seam while others moved out to the thin cracks that weren’t covered placing a patch on them, then going over the welds with more patches to ensure it was air tight. The task in all barely took ten minutes before the engineers gave the thumbs up and the other two Raptors approached to pick them up. --- [i]Ten minutes earlier, Columbia CIC[/i] The message came through and Phillips turned. “Get that Ensign back up here, looks like his job isn’t done afterall.” Luckily the Raptors were relaying the transmission so it wasn’t just a bunch of garbled static. “Send a text transmission, see if they understand this any better and hopefully we’ll understand theres. [i]This is Columbia Actual, we are a Battlestar off the Colonial fleet supposed to be deployed in vital combat operations against a Cylon Force. Do you have local star charts that can help us pinpoint our current location.[/i] Message ends.” He watched as the new DRADIS contact continued to drift without power. There was nothing he could do about that now. “Have a message run down to the Commander, inform him a new contact has turned up and is heavily damaged-””DRADIS Contact! Bearing 198 carom 335.””Gods damnit what is it now?” It was getting irritating now, even with the fact that he had told people not to bother mentioning it unless it appeared quite close to the ship it was happening with too much off a regularity. “Unknown designation, no transponder. We’re picking up a distress beacon… unknown origin.” This was just becoming annoying now. “Communications””Sir.””Squawk ident and challenge, standard procedure.””Aye sir.” He turned back to look at the DRADIS board as he listened to the comm officer. “Unidentified vessel this is the Battlestar Columbia. Identify yourself or we will be forced to take hostile action. Repeat, this is the Battlestar Columbia. Identify yourself or we will be forced to take hostile action.” [u][b]||N1-B [i]Romanova[/i]_[/b][/u] “New radar contact R5, bearing 054, medium range. Moving away,” the radarman reported. Venera waited for the visual report from Volkov’s flak while studying the central screens. Sensors had the contact as saucer-shaped, drifting downward relative to the [i]Romanova[/i]. “Magnetoferrous sensors indicate debris drifting from R5,” reported magenetoman. Another spaceman handed her a printout. The primary leak in the plasma ducting had been repaired. Then yet another spaceman came up with yet another damned printed report. She hoped to Lenin that it wasn’t more pointless paperwork. [i]Earlier, Several Decks Below:[/i] Spaceman Aleksei Kepinski had trained for years to sit at his station. He was a veteran of several early spaceflights, and now was proud to be aboard the [i]Romanova[/i] at all. He had to be - otherwise his duty as ‘Senior Officer in Charge of Faxes’ would depress him to the point of leaping out the nearest airlock. So, while the entire ship was busy doing… something, he was sitting in sublevel 5, staring at a fax machine that had never once gone off. If rumor was to believed, it wouldn’t go off again; they were in a different galaxy altogether, and the chronosphere was severed in half, drifting in four directions while they were surrounded by psychic aliens that could mind-control half the ship. Aleksei wasn’t sure how much stock to put into those rumors. An alarm started blaring (again). Aleksei was alert, worried about the possibility of another plasma leak. Or maybe the aliens had managed to turn some of the crew traitor. No, this was a shorter alarm. More like a howl, really. And there was whirring - could it be? [i]Present, Bridge:[/i] “Contact M1, very large vessel, close-range. Magnetoferrous sensor is off the grid!” the magnetoman reported. “Radar confirms M1, bearing 300.” “Fax for you, Comrade Commander,” Aleksei said, saluting sharply and handing Venera the fax. Venera blinked. The whole bridge, in fact, seemed eerily quiet for a moment. She took the fax and mumbled a dismissal. The spaceman seemed to be hanging around still. Of all things, the fax was in plain cyrillic. Sure, the conjugations were off, but otherwise it was remarkably understandable. [i]“This are Columbia Actual, we am one Battlestar off the Colonial fleet supposed to have being deployed in vital combat operations against one Cylon Force. Do you has local star charts that can help us pinpoint our current location?”[/i] The bridge [i]was[/i] silent. And they were staring at her. “Comrade faxman, I have a message for you to send,” Venera said. Aleksei did an appropriately surprised about-face in the hatch. Venera wrote the message in neat rows of carefully-formed letters, signing it with a flourish: [i] “Regret to inform Columbia that we are in an unknown galaxy after a chronosphere malfunction. Observations of local space do not match available star charts.”[/i] As she stood up to hand it to Aleksei, she glared at the bridge crew. “Comrades! There is much work to be done, yes? So let’s get back to it!” [u][b]BS-14 Battlestar [i]Columbia[/i][/b][/u] Lieutenant Seelir pulled a sheet out of the printer beside the tactical station, gave it a skim read before taking it over to the XO who stood at the helm. “Sir, they’ve replied. They appear to also be stranded here without knowing why there are here and have no star charts available to us.” Phillips swore under his breath, that was exactly what they needed. More mysteries and more ships turning up out of the blue. “Do we have any idea what has happened ourselves yet?””No sir, no solid ideas yet.””Do we have FTL?””Yes sir, they’ve just finished fixing the system and its fully repressurized, Astrometrics is busy mapping star charts so we can get a jump solution.””Excellent, put the space between the binary star system and the one after that into our FTL computer. That will give us some nice empty space to plan our next move should we need to jump. Relay the word to the commander as well.” “Once Hotshot has refuelled his bird I want him prepped for another SAR mission, tell Orange Squadron to stay out and join the CAP until he off loads his engineers. Then send him out after the ship that appears to be freefalling.””Sir.””Comms””Ready.””Send off a message to the Romanova alerting them to our current diplomatic meeting with the vessel known as the Tor-Selim. Get the Commanders stance on the possibility of taking a delegate from the [i]Romanova[/i] as well. I don’t like it but the more of us who are strangers and band together the more likely it is that we will find a way to get back to where we need to be. Lets hope it won’t be too frakking late either.” He placed his hand over his eyes, rubbing back and forth as he thought for a moment before lowering his hand again. He didn’t like this, not one bit. There wasn’t an entire alien encounter in the history of the Twelve Colonies and here he was surrounded by the bastards, and the Commander was meeting with one down in the hangar bay. They weren’t meant for this, they were a Battlestar built for war and here they were having to play the good diplomats to find a way back to the battle, that is if they got back and there was still a battle or even a war to fight. “While we’re playing the make friends game send a message to the Romanova and see if she has FTL capabilities back online. We wouldn’t want to leave some of the few allies behind if it comes to a fight.””Sir.” He looked at the comm station as the officer went about his work. At least contacts had stopped appearing out of the blue in the middle of their formation. There appeared to be a pattern, those who appeared to be somewhat native were entering from the edge of the planets gravity while those who were dragged here appeared in the middle of their little formation. Of course none of the locals were answering their hails, otherwise they could have been out of here by now. No, naturally the only ones to answer them were people in the same frakking situation. A couple of minutes later the runner came back. “Report Private.””Sir, the Commander said that it would be acceptable for a delegate from the Romanova to come aboard.””All right then. Comms.””Sir?””Update the message to our friends over on the Romanova. Tell them if they are willing we will send over a Raptor for a delegation.” [u][b]||N1-B [i]Romanova[/i]_[/b][/u] “Kapitan Utkin!” Venera shouted. He appeared. “You’d said the major repairs are nearly completed?” She was smiling madly. “Da, comrade Commander, but-” her Executive Officer said. “Good. You are to report to the airlock and suit up. Kapitan-leytenant Volkov will accompany you to the [i]Columbia[/i].” Utkin had been one of the people with objections to the Cosmonaut program. Venera knew this, and more to the point, so did Volkov. So she would politely declined the option of a ride over, knowing that Volkov was more than capable of navigating a few kilometers in space while dragging Utkin along. “Comrade faxman, new message to the [i]Columbia[/i]: ‘We will accompany your craft to the [i]Columbia[/i] and attend the conference. Our representatives will meet you by our airlock.’” Meanwhile, another contact showed up. [u][b]BS-14 Battlestar [i]Columbia[/i][/b][/u] “DRADIS Contact-””For the love of Gods Mr.Seelir you can stop that. Only inform of new contacts if we get a transponder we recognize or if they take action against us.””Yes sir.””Comms.””Sir?””Follow standard procedure for new Contact. Squawk Ident and Challenge.””Aye sir.” He briefly heard the now common thing for the Comm officer to say on the bridge. “Have Blue Squadron swing back around, scrub the SAR mission-” He had been watching the DRADIS and contacts from the newest ship were moving towards it, obviously planning to do what he was going to do. “-Have Hotshot tank up like everyone else but keep him ready in the hanger bay. Have Marines standing ready in the portside landing bay to take our guests to the ward room.””Yes sir.” This day was just getting busier and busier. --- Turbo pulled up on the yoke and back on the throttle as his craft turned. As soon as he had righted himself and re-orientated he kicked on the thrusters. “All right Blue, let’s go do some more escort work.” They flew close over the body of the Columbia, he could almost wave at the gun crews. As he swung down past the flight pod he saw a couple of contacts from the newest ship dragging something however it wasn’t coming towards them so he paid it no attention, however he pointed his Viper at it for a second so that someone could pick it up later from the inflight camera. Once he corrected himself he kicked back on the thrusters and looped himself and his squadron around the Romanova, showing off slightly. As they linked up with the… well. It would usually be a transport however it was just two people with Jetpacks. He kept on front of them, as his squadron formed up around them. He wouldn’t trust doing something like that anyway, even the engineers who worked in Zero-G had lines attached to a Raptor. He didn’t even bother with the Radio, he had been told that these people wouldn’t understand so he didn’t waste the time. How people were going to communicate with them wasn’t his problem. Arriving at the Port-Landing bay he lead them in before rejoining the CAP. People in EVA suits were standing on the deck, waving the jetpack users over to the airlock that wasn’t attached to or obscured by the giant hunk of junk from the other ship. --- Volkov took it nice and slow, keeping a good distance between himself and the nimble darts from the [i]Columbia[/i]. Utkin still, somehow, found a way to slow him down. The senior officer was constantly adjusting his heading by increasingly smaller amounts. He had the “mid-walk jitters”, and was probably afraid of missing their target. All he was doing was wasting fuel while increasing the random motion of his course. It wasn’t just that Utkin didn’t want to spend time with the man whom he’d nearly gotten reassigned, nor that he would be doing it while fulfilling the role of pencil-pusher, but it was the fact that he had to first do it while falling from one speck to another speck while hanging above a planet. Utkin felt like he was going to burn up at any second, the whole way there. So when the two finally did arrive on the Columbia’s hangar deck, neither of them looked at each other. Volkov stared straight ahead, chest out, (new) laser rifle politely pointing at the deck (for now). Utkin smiled and greeted the alien delegation. They were actually quite human, to his disappointment. He pulled out a notepad and pencil from a pouch on the space suit so they could actually understand one another, and got on with the buisiness of greetings and figuring out where they actually needed to be. And where they could store their bulky suits. And where Volkov’s weapon was to be securely stored. The list went on.