outer_divide | [Text] Saturday, Week 37: Saving Salvation

[The message pings its way across the communicators, encrypted and filtered to the Ship contingent (and Thor) on a lazy Saturday morning. ]

Kaidan Alenko here.

Now that we've all had a chance to catch our breath, I should share what I learned for my part of the timeslip. To give some context, I was dropped back a hundred years or so relative to now, to a point on board Salvation roughly a week before her crash.

The ship was functional, and I was able to speak to the AI and learn a few things about the nature of what's going on here. Most critical is the fact that we weren't brought here by Salvation or her crew for a specific purpose, we were rescued after having fallen through a dimensional rift out of our own realities and into the spaces in between, where it's pretty lethal to the point where several weeks of regeneration in the stasis pods still left one poor guy looking like what might some day become hamburger after the pod dislodged him ahead of schedule.

I'd say 'accidentally', but Salvation's AI suspected sabotage, but was unable to prove it due to gaps in her memory logs, likely intentional. I was unable to access key parts of her systems in that timestream, but if we can get her online again now, I bet I could learn more.

Back to the reality rifts thing -- one opened on the ship at one point, letting these energy-sucking creatures on board the ship. Exciting stuff, if you can imagine, and I wonder if they were the same things that people in the future timeline reported seeing.

Salvation has the computing power needed to get us all home again, if we can repair her enough, but to my mind the stakes are higher. Something's destabilizing different realities, and the goal of the ship was to figure out how to stop it. If that's the future of Verdana, and I have my suspicions about what that countdown on the ship is about, I think we might need to make a stand here before we think about going home, or we might not have homes left to go to.

Alenko out.

[In a private message to Tosh, Bruce and Tony]

On a lighter note, I scored an equation for calculating time travel off the AI, if anyone's curious. It's huge, though, you'll need some serious data storage just for the equation alone.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah... although it's a second-count, and if my math's right it won't hit zero for a little over four months. Not great, by any standards, but it'll give us time if we don't waste it.

Edited 2013-06-08 04:09 (UTC)

Four months.

[That's better than the mere days they'd had, before, at least. Haruka makes a frustrated noise on her side of the screen.]

There has to be something that can be done. Would I be of use at all in helping? I am not a genius, I do not know much about technology besides how to drive fast cars... I am just a soldier.

But if there is anything I can do.

Believe me, I can understand the frustration, as one soldier to another.

[If a rather more technologically advanced kind of soldier.]

Right now, the big goal I can see is getting the ship's computer back online. That's going to take a lot more rubble clearing, so if you've got any skills that could help with that -- heck, if we found some kind of heavy machinery you could drive -- I'll take every pair of hands I can get.

I can do both. Clear rubble, and drive machinery.

[Her brain is working, here, trying to work out how to make this work.]

I have two guard jobs right now, but one is nearly to the end of the contract, and the other is morning and evening. If I can get swift transport over to the ship, I can work there, during the day. Will this pay, too? I know some are working there for pay, but they are not just people who bash things.

I'm... not actually sure about the payment. I guess talk to the people handling pay for work on researching the ship's systems and see if they have a budget for labour crews.

[Kaidan huffs a soft laugh.]

It's funny how quickly you get used to the idea of goods-for-services rather than money. Although I guess when you're calling in military engineers you don't really worry about paying them for the job yourself either.

Point me in the right direction, and I can ask. I want to help, but I still must pay rent. One part-time guard job will not do that.

[There's a mildly annoyed tone to her voice, there. She's used to being rich and famous, before coming here, and not having to worry about stuff like that.]

I would say I liked being able to live wherever I liked, but I did not like that so much, either. None of this is like home.

Ah... well, don't do anything that would take away from being able to feed yourself. We could use hands shifting rubble, but not at the cost of being able to get by here. I'll look into it.

[Well, she could take a roommate. But Haruka isn't good at sharing, when it isn't with a partner.]

Thank you. Let me know if there is anything I should do, or when and if I should show up.

[Text] Saturday, Week 37: Saving Salvation

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