Wake Up Call (Closed to new)

[Clayton Shields]

Captain Clayton Shields had almost no idea where he was or what happened. All he did know was that as one of the officers aboard the USSC Vanguard it was his duty to figure it out. Rolling out of his cryo pod it took a few minutes before the sluggish feeling in his limbs passed. He went over to a locker that had his name and stored the only possessions he'd brought with him. A couple of service uniforms, pictures from home, different sorts of manuals he'd picked up mostly on weapons, first aid and survival stuff and his personal gear. His service rifle that he'd put a sight and flashlight on, sidearm and his combat blade. He'd had then since he'd gotten out of OCS and couldn't think to part with them. He knew them inside and out and could figure out any kind of jam or problem without even having to look. Although they rarely, if ever, malfunctioned on him.

"Hello? This is Captain Shields, where is everyone?"

His voice echoed out through the cryo bay. A couple of the pods were open already and the ones that weren't still held frozen occupants. He hadn't been briefed on opening a pod up and knew that he could cause a serious problem if he messed up. Cryo pods could only be opened by technicians or the occupants woke up naturally like he had. Slipping on his service uniform, a charcoal grey overall with his rank on the neck and his name over his left chest. It had a zip pocket on each bicep and thigh.

He grabbed his belt that would hold some of his gear around his waist. He slipped his pistol on the right side and his knife around his left calf muscle. Picking up his rifle he realized that he didn't have a lot of ammo. Two magazines for his rifle and three for his pistol, he'd have to try and find the armory and hope that whatever happened to the crew in charge of wake up wasn't as bad as his imagination led him to think. He quickly brought his rifle to his shoulder as the lights in the bay began to flicker. Every sense in his body screamed that something was wrong. He slowly made his way to the bridge and knew something was really wrong when the General's personal pod was open but he wasn't around.

Looking out a port side window he realized they'd landed.

No, we've crashed

He quickly took off running to the closest bay meant for loading and unloading. The huge door was wide open and from the dust and dirt inside it looked like it had been for a while now. He backed up and went to the bridge again. There had to be some kind of sign of what happened. Whatever was going on was not good and Clay was determined not to let it get any worse.

[Innocent]

Mel woke up and opened her eyes. She saw nothing but the frost and condensation on the inside of her pod. For a moment it was perfectly quite. Slowly she pressed her hand up against the glass and pushed. There was a low hissing as the top opened and she swung her legs over the edge and stepped out of the pod. She took a few moments to get her footing before walking to her assigned locker. She dressed in her uniform as would be expected of her, she checked that her pistol was holstered, her rifle was loaded and her hair was tied back.

Check, check and check. Alright Mel, go time.

Only then did she realize something was wrong, it was quiet. No one barking out orders, telling her to hurry up. Slowly she turned back to the cryo chamber.

No one...

Most of the pods were closed, the lights were flickering and pretty much every warning light imaginable was slowly pulsing red. She pushed back her initial instinct to panic, she wasn't alone. Every one else was just asleep or off working some where else on the ship, it was just a fluke she had woken up. Despite this thought she shouldered her rifle, making sure to keep the barrel down so she didn't accentually shoot anyone, and stated jogging. Her boot heels clicking on the metal floor as the neared the bridge. If any one was awake thats where they would be.

[Clayton Shields]

Clayton was under the communications terminal trying to get it working again. He had no idea what he was doing and he was probably only making it worse. He tried to reach up into the back and feel around for any kind of loose wiring. He needed to get in contact with the Serenity or Sierra at least. He just hoped things weren't as bad for them.

"Damn it."

He sliced his finger on a jagged piece of metal. Punching the terminal in frustration he slid out and picked up his rifle. He spied an emergency box fastened to the wall behind the Flight Commander's chair. He opened it to find a small first aid kit, flashlight and a radio. Wrapping his finger he put the flashlight and first aid kit in each of his thigh pockets.

"Mayday, mayday. This is the USSC Vanguard, we have crash landed. Is anyone receiving? Over."

He repeated the message a second and third time but only received static. His ears perked up at a clicking sound coming down the hall from the cryo bay. He recognized it anywhere as jogging boots. Shouldering his rifle but keeping it aimed low in case whoever was coming down was armed and had a jumpy trigger finger. He stepped around the corner and saw a dark haired woman heading his way. He spotted the Lance Corporal insignia, she probably wouldn't have the answers he wanted but at least he wouldn't be on his own.

"Lance Corporal Temple, you got any idea what's going on? How long you been awake?"

He hadn't meant to snap as much as he did. It was partly because of his rank but he didn't like not knowing what was going on. He just had to hope she knew what he didn't because things were not looking good for them.

[Innocent]

As Mel entered the bridge a man came into view, she recognized him but only because she had taken careful note to memorize all the officers who's command she would be under. Still his sharp tone caught her a little off guard. She hesitated for a moment before letting go of her rifle and answering.

"Uh no Captain, Sorry sir i just woke up and your the first person i've seen."

She shifted nervously in place. If there was anything she had learned from her training its that the commanding officers didn't always just want answers they wanted solutions.

"Have you tried the ships black box yet sir? If I remember correctly it keeps logs of all the ships systems as well as any communications. It wont be much but it will be something."

[Clayton Shields]

He watched as she shifted about nervously. That was enough for him to know she knew about as much as he had. Still, back up was back up and from the way she held her rifle he could tell she knew how to use it pretty well. He just hoped they didn't need it. For whatever reason the crew in charge of wake up and flying the ship had crashed and disappeared. He didn't like the way the bay looked when he'd gotten down there. It felt like they'd been here way to long to not have heard something by now.

Black box... why didn't I think of that?

He turned and motioned for the Lance Corporal to follow him into the bridge. He found the black box and pulled it free before setting it on the Flight Commander's chair. He saw a rack of small pocket computers usually used for data reading and transfer but it would work to check out the black box. He just wasn't sure how to go about doing that.

"Lance Corporal, figure out how to get this thing to work. I'm gonna go check the armory and do a sweep of the cryo bay again to see if anyone else woke up. Here," he pulled the radio from his pocket and set it down next to the black box,"there should be more in the armory. I'll contact you on it as soon as I find one. Any kind of problem just shout if I don't make radio contact. I don't know what's going on but I'm authorizing you to fire freely. Just don't hit anyone on our side alright?"

He made his way down to the armory at a fast walk, not wanting to waste a lot of time. He grabbed a pair of assault packs and started filling them with ammo, emergency food and other kinds of gear he thought they'd need. He was relieved when he found a working radio. He grabbed some microphone headsets so they'd be as hands free as possible. They were the kind with the ear piece that went down to a strap for around a person's neck that just required a button to be pushed to talk.

"Temple, this is Captain Shields. I'm heading back to the bridge. Be there in two minutes."

He picked up the packs in one hand and held his rifle with the other. His flashlight and the emergency lights guiding his way. He stopped at the doorway to cryo but didn't see any movement. If someone was awake they'd come looking. Right now he just wanted to get back to the bridge and get some order back. He stepped around the corner to the bridge and dropped the bags on the floor.

"Anything good Lance Corporal?"

[Innocent]

Mel nodded as she hooked the black box up to the data pad. Instantly files began to download, way to many to read. She blinked as if that would help clear up the jumble of files, it didn't.
After a little sorting however she found what she was looking for. The captains logs. She skimmed her way though until she found the ones she was looking for and by that time Captain Clayton was back.

"Yes sir, well no sir. I mean i found something but its not good."

She said and handed the pad over making sure to highlight the important parts.

"From what i can tell they lost control of the ship some where along the way, theres a lot of technical stuff i don't understand but the gist of it is that we crashed and burned, hard. But the crew did survive the landing. A few went off to find help because from what they saw while going down this is a colony world. Any way they never came back, after them a few more went missing until finally only a few including the ships commanding officer were left. The final log on here reports him leaving, it says he was to return to wake us up within three days regardless of what he found... That log is dated five weeks ago sir."

She sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "I couldn't even figure out where we were either because one of the systems that failed was navigation."

[Clayton Shields]

He took the pad and skimmed over the highlighted sections but he didn't bother to read most of it as Lance Corporal Temple broke it down for him. He was relieved that the crew had survived but it didn't answer what happened to them.

"Colony world? Why haven't they come to get us yet then?"

He didn't even want to think about what it was that made the crew disappear. The questions were only piling up inside his head and he didn't seem to be finding any answers. He felt like there was a lump in his throat as she said the last reported log was from five weeks ago.

"Five weeks? If that's the last log then we must be the first ones awake since then."

He sat at one of the system command chairs. Turning he saw it was Weapons but he realized this was probably down when it didn't respond to anything. Looking around it seemed as though there seemed to be very few systems still up. The main four he was concerned with were Comms, Navigation, Weapons and Life Support. It seemed like only Life Support was still functional and he just hoped it stayed that way.

"Well this situation is FUBAR. Set up a system to constantly send out a distress signal. I'm going to check the logs and see what direction the nearest Colony is. I don't like it but we're going to have to find out what's going on. After you set up the signal go down to Comms and leave a message to anyone that wakes up to get in full battle rattle and go to the bridge and contact us by radio. If the CO disappeared when he was supposed to come back after three days, then we'll come back after two. Whatever happened out there it's our job to find out. See if you can find anything about what happened to the Sierra or Serenity. Meet me down at the unloading bay as soon as you're done. I'm going to do a foot patrol around the outside of the ship to see if I can spot what happened. Stay frosty, we've lost enough good people as it is."

He walked out and made his way down to the bay, he was glad that the planet at least had a breathable atmosphere. He took a deep breath before stepping out on to dirt. His eyes scanned over the flat landscape for miles around. Hopefully the other ships were better off than they were. The patrol around the ship didn't take long and by the time he got back he could already hear the echoing boot steps of who he assumed was Temple coming down the hall of the ship.

[Innocent]

"Yes Sir."
Mel mumbled as he walked off, she was already moving to set up the beacon and her mind was wandering elsewhere. She moved to the Com station but it was down. She grumbled as she fiddled with it but she had no luck. She was good with technology but she wasn't really a space ship type of person. Her mind sorted through other possibility until she found one that just may work. The Coms were offline but hopefully the system that the ship used to avoid space debris wasn't. She knew this system used a sort of active sonar that would send out a ping to detect any small asteroids that could damage the ship.

She crossed her fingers and pushed the button. The screen lit up, and she exhaled. Thank god something was working. With a few keystrokes she set up the ping to read like morris code and spelled out S.O.S. It was a bit old fashioned but it would have to do and as long as the other ships still had any form of scanner they would pick up the ping.

Now that that was done she activated she ships speaker system and set a message to play on a loop every five minutes. She took the mic in her hand and started recording. "This is Lance Corporal Temple, By direct order of Captain Shields all personal are to arm them selfs and report to the bridge, once there you are to contact us via radio. This is a prerecorded message."

She turned off the mic and activated the recording. She listened to it once before walking to the loading bay. As she stepped out into the open she gave a thumbs up. "Everything up and running."

[Clayton Shields]

Clay was leaning up against the side of the bay when Lance Corporal Temple came around the corner and gave him the thumbs up. He heard her voice echoing over the speaker system relaying the message just as he'd asked her to. He'd definitely be putting her up for a commendation as soon as they got rescued.

"Good work Temple. For all intents and purposes you're my second in command. So unless someone above my rank gives you an order, you don't do anything unless I authorize it alright? I hate to say it but you're the lucky winner of who gets to be Shield's new assistant. Try to be a little more upbeat, this situation is already tough enough. I promise I look after my unit, I'd never make you do something I wouldn't do myself. In fact depending on how bad things are, I'll probably need you to pull my ass out of the fire."

He never cared much for rank formality other than maintaining a chain of command. He was just glad she had some skill with technology, since his own was very limited. He pulled his duty cap from his back pocket and slipped it over his head along with his sunglasses over his eyes. Shouldering one of the assault packs, he handed the other to Temple.

"Come on, we're going off in the same direction as the General did when he disappeared. I figure at least that way we might find out what happened."

[Innocent]

"Yes sir, You got my back and i got yours." Mel said as chipper as possible as she shouldered the pack. Being up beat at a time like this seemed strange but she didn't have anything against being a happy person so she decided to give it a shot.

"Sounds good." She said as she put her own hat on and pulled her gloves onto her hands. She walked along side him and surveyed the terrain. On all sides there was a wide sprawling plain. Traveling across that was going to be a pain but it had to be done and maybe if they were lucky they would find something.

"So Captain, what do you make of all this? I mean people don't just go missing, especially not marines."

[Clayton Shields]

"Damn straight Temple, that's pretty much the idea." He was glad she wasn't letting the situation bring her down to much. He'd seen Marines crack under pressure and they were never useful to anyone. "Here's hoping that there are more officers out there or I may get in way over my head."

He left his own gloves in his pocket as he lead the way into the jungle. The humidity already getting to him as the sun shined overhead. He undid the top part of his uniform letting the wind blow against him. "Feel free to carry your gear however you want. I'm not gonna hold you to uniform standards. If something is more comfortable and will help you do your job better than that's what I want."

He felt like he was being watched from in the jungle. The stock of his rifle felt at home against his shoulder as his eyes looked all over.

"I don't know Temple, whatever is going on I don't like it one bit. I knew the General, whatever made him disappear is not good news for us. Keep your eyes peeled and let me know if you spot anything that seems strange."

[Innocent]

"Ah don't worry about it sir, You've been doing a good job so far." She said and she pulled her rifle a little closer to he shoulder. Her eyes searched the plains which seemed to be getting more and more desolate by the second.
She walked in silence for a little while longer until something caught her eye. The was a rustling in some grass near by. Mel stopped and picked up a rock and chucked it into the grass. The rock bounced off something with a metallic ping. That caught her attention and she bent down and pushed the grass aside. A variety of small rodents scurried away as she parted the grass to reveal the rusty cover to an access tunnel.

She ran her hand over it until she found a handle, it opened with a creaking groan and she peered down inside, there was nothing but darkness. She dropped another rock down the hole and it fell for quite a while before hitting the ground below. It was to deep to go down without gear and it was in the middle of nowhere.

Mel turned back to Captain Shields and shrugged. "I think this counts as some what strange. Maybe the general just fell down one of these holes or something." She said skeptically as she peered down into the dark.

[Dawson]

Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, come on, reveille, rise and shine, sweetheart!

Slowly, Becca peeled her eyes open and tried to shake the blur away. It didn't really work. Blinking a few more times, she grimaced as she attempted to move, the stiffness in her muscle and joints preventing her from getting very far. She wasn't quite as as spry as she'd once been, and a life in Recon hadn't exactly done wonders for her joints. Still, she hadn't imagined cryo to be quite this bad. Something wasn't right. It was almost as if...as if she was pressing into her restraints as opposed to the bed itself. As the grogginess of cryo began to wear off, her mind finally began to wrap itself around what the problem was. She was pressing into her restraints, or, more aptly, hanging in them. Which meant that, for some reason, her pod was upside-down. Or the ship was. Neither was really a good thing, but she would have much preferred the former.

"Okay...I'll deal. Get out first, think about it later."

Wriggling her arm free, she began unclipping straps, until she was laying on the frost-glazed glass. From there, it took her a good five minutes of attempting to pry the hatch open, pry the main bed off the glass, and finally rocking the entire thing side to side until it rolled partially over before she managed to push the top open. Sure enough, her pod had been laying glass-down on the floor. Muttering something about something and something else, she pulled herself out and let training take over, shutting off her mind for awhile. Letting her body follow trained instinct, she moved to her locker and started digging out essential gear. Once she had half her utility uniform on, she grabbed a small injector that contained a small dose of epinephrine, just enough to get the blood flowing, and stuck herself in the neck. Shaking her head as it kicked in, she shook out her shoulders and wrists, then continued dressing herself. Finished taking what she needed immediately from the locker, she moved to the notably larger foot-locker beside it, which contained most of her combat load. Propping it open, she smiled thinly at the contents; in Recon, the command structure wasn't quite so picky about your gear. Issued gear, well...as long as you held on to it and could pull it out for an inspection, nobody was going to call you out for taking something else into the field. Tying her hair back into a knot, she strapped her tactical holster on her hip and pulled out her sidearm, basically a custom variant of what most units were issued built specifically for Recon. Bearing much higher quality parts, an extended magazine, a suppressor, tritium inlaid sights, and a tac light, it was, simply put, just better. Closing the box after making sure everything was where it needed to be, she stood up and turned around.

Then she turned her brain back on.

Then she swore.

Well, that explained a few things. It was fairly easy to piece together the series of events that had occurred in the room; first, somehow, one of the cryo chambers had been dislodged, forcibly, from its mounts, and had been propelled into the one across from it, undoubtedly killing both occupants, if the bloodstains and glass shards were any indicator. From there, the loose chamber had basically turned into a pinball, wrecking several more pods and dislodging a few, like her own.

A few minutes later, she'd checked each pod individually. Nine dead, six missing, nine unharmed, plus herself. Alright, that was as high an accountability as she was getting in here, now to figure out what was going on. Which took roughly twenty seconds, fifteen for her to cross the room, five to look out a porthole and see that they were on the ground and the pieces of the ship spread out nearby. "Crashed? Figures. Of course we crashed."

Heading back into Cryo Bay Thirty-Six, what had been unofficially labeled the Recon Bay, she collected her personal communicator and attempted to send a few messages over Recon frequencies. Nothing. HQ frequencies. Nothing. She cursed as an all too familiar sensation ran up her spine. Something was wrong. Pulling on her body armor, which bore a few years of hard wear in addition to a bursting bomb in place of rank, and throwing some odds and ends into an assault pack, she sheathed her combat knife on her left hip and pulled out all her ammunition from the box. Unlike most of the personnel on board, none of the Recon Marines had any need to visit the armory. They were all fully equipped for rapid deployment. Loading her magazine pouches, she dropped the rest of her ammunition in her pack and grabbed her rifle; a variant of the service rifle chambered for a larger calibre, her personal weapon also mounted an underbarrel shotgun, a tac light, and a 4x scope. Running through a function check, she pushed a magazine into the weapon, ensured the safety was on, and pulled the tactical sling on.

Leaving a rather obvious written message beside the door, stating that any Recon coming out of cryo needed to immediately check in on frequency Blue, she tied a bandana over her hair, having left her helmet behind, and stepped into the main hall. Another ten minutes of searching, and all she'd come up with were more questions and no answers. Twice since getting free of her pod a message had played over the PA system, looped and distinctly uninformative. The bridge was empty, though she was quick to note someone had been trying to work on the communications station, unsuccessfully, and...the black box was out, just sitting there where it ought not be, and its contents only raised more questions than gave answers. Conscious crew were nowhere to be found, although there were signs that some had been passing through the halls, recently, and none of the active ship systems really held any useful information. Muttering something under her breath, Becca headed for a loading bay and, eventually, the outside of the ship. Pulling on a pair of ballistic sunglasses as she stepped into the sun, she looked around for awhile and finally looped the wire for her earpiece around the back of her ear, pressing the end of the device back into her ear canal. Tapping it a few times to ensure it was set, she changed to a general military frequency which, theoretically, would put her in contact with any military personnel within 25 kilometers that still had their comm' on and hadn't disabled general frequencies, though really the only people who did that were on missions.

Theoretically.

Cradling her rifle in one arm, she climbed onto a piece of the ship that had come off and sat down, keying her throat-mic as she did. "To Oscar Tree Sierra, this is Whiskey Oscar Tree Delta, over." Her tone calm and level, almost eerily so considering the situation, it nevertheless carried an edge. Hopefully, this Captain Shields was listening. And hadn't forgotten basic radio etiquette. For now, all she could do was wait and mull things over, spend a little time looking at tracks maybe.

Actually, on that note, there was a pair, two actually, that looked fairly fresh. Last resort. Wait for comm's first, D. Pushing off the gentle but persistent urge to light up, she again muttered something under her breath. Now was not the- Ah, screw it. Pulling a cheap cigar from her pack, she bit off the end and lit it, puffing gently.

Keying her mic, she repeated the message.

Hell of a way to start the day.

Well, at least it wasn't raining, right?

[Innocent]

Mel stepped back to let the Captain take a look when her radio beeped, it was followed by a short message, a message containing military tags and call signs she didn't understand. Shields seemed busy so she decided to answer radio herself.

"This is Lance Corporal Melanie Temple, Go ahead Whiskey Oscar Tree Delta, we read you."

She slung her rifle over her shoulder and waited for the response.

(Sry for the short post, im a tad busy with some school work right now)

[Dawson]

Lance Corporal Temple...that was who had recorded the message on the Vanguard, wasn't it? It mildly annoyed Becca that Temple had so indiscriminately thrown her name over a relatively unsecured frequency, but she reminded herself that she wasn't dealing with Recon. Standard Operating Procedure in her unit was never use names over an open channel, and they had always carried it even further to the point that they'd never even used them over fully-secured ones, but that wasn't generally the case outside Recon. Even so, she had no plans to reciprocate; there was no way in Hell she was about to identify herself over a radio. She'd cut comm's and track them on foot before she did. If, for whatever reason, this Temple couldn't identify Becca's rank from the given radio ID, then, well...that wasn't her problem right now. Of course, she had no idea really that Temple actually had a valid reason for not knowing the used protocol.

Puffing a few times, she eyed a distinctly black cloud in the far distance warily for a few seconds before finally keying her mic again. "Temple-" Pausing a half-second before almost using her callsign, she again reminded herself that this woman wasn't one of hers, and thus wouldn't have been briefed on any of the codes Recon was using. "-I'm currently located near Vanguard, got full gear but I'm startin' to feel real lonely up here all by myself. What's your current location? Are you alone? Harmed? What's your status, over?"

Pushing her glasses onto her forehead, she continued scowling at the cloud for awhile. It was getting closer. Had to mention rain, didn't you, D? Just had to. Ah well, at least it'll make creeping around easier, but so much for tracking.

There was something distinctly foreboding about this place. It wasn't something she could see, hear, smell, or feel, but she knew this feeling well enough. It was in the air. Everywhere, all around her, pushing in on her. Death. The two were old friends, and she had yet to encounter anything else that could linger in such a manner just by passing through. She couldn't help but think, whatever it was that was going on, it had been preceded by blood, and instinct said there would be more. If there was one thing she'd learned, it was to listen to her instinct.

Sliding off her perch, her boots hit the ground with a heavy thud, but nothing rattled. She'd spent a very long time learning how to keep her gear unnaturally quiet. Stepping a few paces forward, she knelt over one of the most recent footprints and studied it for a few seconds as she waited for a response from Temple. She wasn't fond of standing around and waiting when she could at least gather a little more information. There were a few sets of varying age, but two stood out. Relatively fresh and made at least close to the same time. Placing her own boot beside one, she walked forward a few paces, then came back to examine the difference. One larger set, a little larger than her own, but just barely not as deep. Pretty close to her weight, maybe a little more; male, then, she wagered. The other pair was a little smaller, and belonged to someone notably lighter. Female, or maybe a lightweight. She was putting her money on the former. Likely Temple, she figured, which meant, going off of what information she had, the other pair was Captain Shields.