TheMadAsshatter

Carvings of the Galaxy

Man, Tahlia is going to be ready to murder Ailbert later on.

What Are You Listening To?

Carvings of the Galaxy

@Eru Iluvatar Sounds good.

Carvings of the Galaxy

Posted, lol. Sorry, it took a little longer than expected.

Carvings of the Galaxy

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Tahlia Spade

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After she left Owen to his own devices, Tahlia began to wonder if she was too hard on him. Not just now, but in general. She knew she had a tendency to generate some unfair preconceptions about people, and as irreverent as Owen could be, she recognized that he was ultimately here for a reason, and he wouldn't be a psychologist if he didn't at least sort of care about people. Maybe she would try to talk to him later and try to level with him.

Tahlia hadn't realized that she had paused in the hallway to ponder this. She looked around to make sure no one, especially Owen, had seen. Thankfully, Owen was already gone, and no one decided to sneak up on her in the meantime. She let out a small sigh and continued into the cockpit.

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The Artemis: Cockpit

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The door opened with a hiss, revealing the interior of the ship's cockpit. It wasn't very large, only having space for the pilot and two ancillary crewmembers on either side of the room. Not even a co-pilot. That seemed rather unconventional. Still, most passenger jets really only required a crew of 3 to operate properly, and this ship wasn't much larger than one. She went to the port-side panel and tapped on the display, bringing up a diagnostic screen of the ship's major systems. She played with the display a bit, seeing what she could bring up. Engine status, power output and consumption, reactor operation and temperature, life support, and so on. This screen seemed to be dedicated towards engineering. If she was reading it correctly, everything seemed to be working properly. All of the major systems, anyhow. There was probably some way to get to some of the subsystems, but she let it be for now. She was more interested in navigation.

She walked to the opposite side of the room and touched the Starboard display. This one had what she was looking for, though she had a harder time reading the information on this screen. She toyed with the display, hoping to get a more meaningful representation of the information displayed. She eventually found some information about the planet they were heading towards. Yaicarro. An Earth-like planet that's about 0.9 Earth masses and a little less than 6000 kilometers in radius. It has two small moons and an orbital period of 426 Earth days. It orbited at a distance of roughly 185 million kilometers from it's star, which was roughly the same size as the Sun. Atmospheric composition and density were estimated to be similar to Earth's, with a max deviation of 2% in regards to gas composition, with about 90% of Earth's atmospheric density. Estimated average temperature was 12 degrees Celsius, a little cooler than Earth.

There were other fields, like axial tilt, biological makeup, and rotational period, but they were all marked with "unknown." No doubt because it would be nearly impossible to detect such things from Earth. They'd have to find such things out for themselves when they got there.

She scrolled again to another display, which gave a pretty good idea as to where they were. The ship had left the Solar System roughly a year after launch, and was currently about 20 light years away from Earth. Their destination was about 4 light years away, with an estimated arrival time of about 25 years from now. That made the decision of turning back a lot easier, but it did mean that they would have to re-enter the cryo tubes at some point.

Tahlia turned away from the screen and looked at the pilot's seat. She took a couple of hesitant steps towards it, not knowing if she should see what she can do with it. It occurred to her that this was why they needed a pilot, but surely there were other, more qualified candidates than her. She crept up to the seat, which was positioned right in front of the window. There were several screens on either side of the chair, no doubt with abbreviated versions of what the other displays had to show. The window itself had a heads-up display installed, but all it showed was direction relative to orientation, along with the fact that the ship was on autopilot. She decided to sit down and further familiarize herself with the controls.

Even though they were in a completely different environment, it felt good to be in a pilot's seat again. Tahlia noticed that the main flight controls seemed to be modeled after most other aircraft, with a yoke in front of the pilot's seat. There was a throttle on the left, and a joystick on the right, along with rudder pedals. She wondered what the joystick was for. Finer movements? Possibly. She tapped one of the displays, which brought up the autopilot. It was set to turn off once the ship came within 500000 kilometers of the planet. Another display brought up flight information. She couldn't understand some of it, but the one thing that jumped at her was their cruising speed. 50000 kilometers per second.

The sense of scale hit her at that point, and for a moment she had to stop. She looked out the window, and for the first time since waking up she finally stopped herself long enough to really take it in. They were in space. A great big void of nothingness. It was a sobering experience, to see firsthand how vast it really was. Tahlia looked around the panels for a way to turn off the HUD and dim the screens. She found them soon enough, turning off as many distractions as she could so that she could get a better look at the stars. The room became almost completely dark, lit only by a few small buttons and the stars. The more Tahlia's eyes got adjusted to the dark, the more she could see. More stars faded into view, until eventually she could see the sky saturated with specks of light. Soon enough, she could even make out the galactic equator cutting through the upper right portion of her vision. She leaned back and relaxed herself, realizing that she had barely given herself any time to appreciate the view until just now. All she needed was a cup of coffee and some music and this moment would be perfect.

She decided to let go of whatever priorities she may have had and just let herself exist in the moment. She cleared her thoughts and let herself just stare into the void. She brought her legs up and crossed them, then brought her arm onto her leg, resting her head on her palm. She let out a small chuckle and let a smile crack on one side of her face. She had always been intrigued by space, but she never thought she would be lucky enough to be there. She wasn't sure if this could be considered luck, per-se, but she was here, regardless of the circumstances. She shifted her position one more time and closed her eyes, satisfied, in a weird way, at where she found herself.

---

Tahlia awoke as she heard the door open and Benji enter the cockpit. The lights and displays had since come back on, illuminating the cockpit as usual. She wondered how long she had been asleep for. It wasn't her intention, but the nap felt good regardless. She sat up and turned to look at Benji, who predictably went right into chatting away. Having just woken up, Tahlia was too groggy to really care or pay attention. At one point she stretched herself out and let out a yawn, which kinda woke her up. It was then that she noticed what Benji was saying. It was the first time she had seen him talking in such a way. She considered that maybe he actively tried to stay happy as opposed to it being something that just came naturally to him. Maybe she was reading too far into it, as usual.

"It's something that's occurred to me several times before. How can you know that anything is real? When you dream, do you know that it's not real?" she responded matter-of-factly. "I stopped giving a shit; it's not worth worrying about. I just focus on the present, regardless of whether it is or isn't real." She got out of the seat, making eye contact with Benji for the first time since he entered. "It's only natural to think like that sometimes." she finished, stretching one more time before heading to the door. "Let's get going, then."

Carvings of the Galaxy

Just read the new posts. I'll probably have a response up in the next couple of days. More than likely Friday.

Carvings of the Galaxy

Yeah, myself and Atrophy are still doing ours. It's almost done, though. Unfortunately, our schedules don't line up too well.

Carvings of the Galaxy

@Deserted Done! :p

Carvings of the Galaxy

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Tahlia Spade / Yazmin Cormick / Echo Montegawitz

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Upon entering the kitchen, Tahlia saw everyone sitting around the table. Being her usual self, she decided to take a step back and lean against one of the counters, listening to the conversation unfold. A moment later, Yaz walked in, carrying her arm and some tools with her. The first thing she did upon taking her seat was begin putting it on. As much as Tahlia didn’t want to seem intrusive, she couldn’t help but be curious as Yaz went about connecting the arm and attaching everything together, as it seemed. So much so that she even began to tune out the conversation at hand.

Once it seemed everything was done properly, Yaz turned a knob, causing her to recoil in pain. Tahlia wasn’t sure, but it seemed like she just connected the nerves with the arm. Must’ve hurt. "You okay?" Tahlia asked.

Yazmin unclenched her teeth, releasing a deep sigh, then began tapping the ends of her mechanical fingers, each flinching in response. She nodded as Tahlia spoke. "Yeah, I’m good. It’s just that the artificial and biological nerves connect through electromagnetic pulses, and the first one kick-starts it all… not exactly a pleasant feeling."

"I can imagine," Tahlia replied. She crossed her arms and shifted her focus back to Benji, right as the windows began to open and she saw the outside. She had barely registered what she was looking at when Benji broke the news. She heard Yazmin say something, but was too busy trying to process this newfound knowledge to understand it. Her eyes switched between Benji and the window a couple of times before she pushed herself away from the counter and went towards the window. Sure enough, there was no ground, no mountains, no Earth; nothing anywhere around them aside from an expanse of stars.

They were actually in space. Tahlia wasn’t sure what to think in that moment. Really, she wasn’t doing much thinking at all. She was more lost, just sort of staring out into the abyss as it were. She was both enamored by how pretty it all was, but also still processing the fact that they were no longer anywhere near Earth.

And then there came the thought of why they were somewhere Cryonautics didn’t tell them they would be. What was the purpose of that? Why lie when they were going to be the last six people alive anyways? She turned around and looked at Benji, who was at that point talking about where they were going. Yaicarro. What a weird name. She was about to ask how far away they were from this mystery planet, when Benji had a sort of breakdown. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to prompt a reaction from him afterwards, so she decided to just let him carry on and take his leave.

"I see very little difference in way the Cryonautics has handled the situation as opposed to the information we were given." the voice drew Tahlia from her thinking, "A ship functions as a bunker only mobile, and the difference between an isolated colony and repopulation is a very fine line. We signed up to start a new world. The fact that the old one may still be in existence is moot. Our old world is gone now, by hundreds of years... and the current one will age and turn to dust should we decide to head back, simply distancing ourselves even more. We would be completely alien should we return."

Even in the moment of reflection and opinion, Echo worked. She cycled through a few screens and then began punching buttons in the environmental system. Immediately it woke up, no longer being in its long suspension and energy reserve mode and becoming a sensation. A little ozone here, some ionization, a pinch of variable humidity there, some geosmin, and a hint of dust... this added distinct petrichor to the air causing the claustrophobic confines seem more like a cabin in the woods than being trapped in a bubble of life in a sea of death. This was atmospheric cosmetics at their finest. Too bad she couldn’t actually maintain or repair the system, merely use it.

Tahlia cocked an eyebrow and turned her head in the direction of her voice. She recognized the voice as being Echo's, but what she was saying almost alarmed Tahlia. Sure, she wasn’t as chipper as, say, Benji, but Tahlia didn’t recall her being so pensive, and in such a negative way. Tahlia followed the corridor that Echo’s voice emanated from and found her working on some of the environmental control systems… still in her underwear. It wasn’t unlike Echo to try to stay busy, but this seemed unhealthy. The fact that she went straight to work right out of the cryo tube, without even sparing a second thought about her situation as it were, was definitely enough to concern Tahlia.

"Hey, you gonna get some clothes on? It’s kinda chilly in here." Of course, as usual, she approached the situation with little tact, even given her observations.

It was almost like a different person spun out from behind her. Echo transformed from an emotionless robot and into the person everybody had known. Maybe it was just the cryo suspension wearing off. She smiled and seemed to get her bearings a little better. "A habit which would be in my best interest to break. I am afraid that I got used to it with all of those last minute medical exams."

With a sudden wave of self-consciousness, she made a route directly for the blankets and tossed one around her only to return to the environmental controls and continue her task one handed. The sudden change in attitude, of course, did not go unnoticed by Tahlia, nor did Echo’s only marginal attempt to peel herself away from her task. It almost seemed like she was obsessed with doing work, but perhaps that was just Tahlia being overcritical, as usual. Regardless, something was up with Echo, without a doubt. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Echo, stopped once the question had escaped Tahlia’s lips, and then began again this time slower not out of annoyance but perhaps because she was actually forced to face her attitude. "There was always an undeniable impeccable sense of focus throughout the selection process. There was a clear goal and if we didn’t keep a tight reign on our minds, then we were going to fail. Now that achievement is well in hand, and we have been activated for our duties, I find that I don’t have anything to focus on..."

She abruptly stopped tweaking the environmental controls and slammed the panel shut again with more emotion than effort. "With the exception of busy work, apparently."

She turned away from the window and sat down at the table for but a moment, and then stormed the food storage for the cake speaking as she collected a snack to tame her frustration. Even then there was reserve as the section she sliced was considerably smaller than those she plated and was neatly cut."No matter how prepared I was, and no matter how much a figment it may seem. My heart created expectations should I wake from Cryo, that the world would have been frozen with me. My family would be present to greet me, the other candidates who didn’t make the cut would be in conversation at a welcome party, the Earth would be proceeding just as it ever had. A whimsical concept, I know, but ingrained nevertheless. Yet, here we are in an expectedly bleak reality, and it merely seems as though my success is the cause of their silence rather than a product of it.

How do you compensate for this blow? Everyone is dead, or at the very least everybody we knew. I find it a press to the soul to have the hopes of billions of people tethered to us... their final gamble. Renaissance has been initiated. It is a burden, a weight so immense that no joy can stand from being dragged into the abyss. But look at me blowing a storm cloud over the ship. It’s good to see that the team made it through cryo just fine."

Choosing to ignore Echo’s abrupt shifts in attitude for a moment, Tahlia thought about the question. She didn’t really have any strong connections with anyone back on Earth. Not to say she was a loner, but she didn’t have a lot of close friends before they left. Even she and her mom had grown distant. It was fairly easy for her to just leave it behind, especially with the knowledge that it may save humanity. Of course, Cryonautics lied about one thing; who's to say that the Earth really was completely toast? No doubt things were turning south, but maybe society bounced back.

Tahlia was going on a tangent. She thought back to the original question. "The way I see it, what’s done is done. Not much we can do now except for press on. People were bound to die from the moment everything started going to hell. I prepared myself for the worst from the word go." She paused for a moment, trying to gauge Echo’s expression. "I’m sure that’s not a big comfort, and it’s too late to do much about it now. We’re alive though. That’s good."

It occurred to Tahlia that she could probably find some information on the planet they were headed towards in the cockpit. "You should get some clothes on. I’m going to the cockpit to see what there is to see. Let me know if you need something," she said before turning and heading off.

Echo agreed, and wandered off to find a living space and lockers while carrying a saucer and fork to accompany her treat.

Carvings of the Galaxy

@Deserted Alright, gives them something to talk about!