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RP: Lazarus Enter: Entropy

OsakanOne

Retired Member
A wall of screaming radiance, two lightyears across. An impassable FTL deadzone of sheer noise. At the center of the monster’s belly, her twin hearts: Rhoi and Hakahn; the beast who ate her children.

The first planet: Fury. Superheated gas-giant. Razor sharp iron rain. Coiled mercury core.
Inhospitable to life.

Second planet: Sheol. A hyperdense ocean of carbon dioxide.
Uncolonized.

Third event: Tsaba. Asteroid cluster. Methane gas. Methanesulfuric glass. Trihydrocarbon.
Organic compounds. No life.

Fourth planet: Entropy. Planetoid. Oxygen/Nitrogen composition. Battered by storms. Crashlandings of vessels. A junkyard of interstellar wreckage.

We don't talk about Entropy.

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Location: E12
Time: 07:00 @ 25/09/YE37

♫ Mad Max - "Storm is coming"




Drifting through the angry red clouds, scorched above by arcs of hot plasma billions of miles long — lightning thicker than nations and hotter than anything man-made — a primitive scaffolding of four shuttles, two large fuel pylons and mounting platforms slowly coasts at a factor of light-speed. Its hull is worn from the constant impacts at velocity. Vents, compartments, all sealed. Behind it, an enormous disc like shield: ejected hours ago, freely struck by the beyond white hot arms and hands of star thunder and stellar song, unimaginably massive in the grand cosmic dynamo.

The craft, seemingly scaffolding and hastily assembled elements was a precision built machine from older component: abandoning suicidal high energy electrical field modernity of space folding or high energy fusion that would surely call down upon the wrath of the dancing stars:

Simplicity, though so backwards and so dangerous was the one true saving grace of this pithy boat in the great inky void. Sailing on inertia. Riding gravity. Deflecting fragments -- all techniques of space-travel not seen in almost hundreds of years: a single inter-orbital correctional burn of hydrogen and positrons lasting hours on a ship largely made up of propellant, hopes and dreams.

Within the office block sized suicide box, A figure sat in forward compartment, watching the universe unfold in slow motion plumes of starbirth as the strange sensation called time caught up with them following stasis.

They waited, mind on their cargo — a battery of electronic coffins not like the beds they had arisen from as numbers drifted by on cathode borne thick wells of circular glass: radiant dials of amber, green and blue about the cabin lined by thick heavy switches. Hardened for the rage of the system as they fell into her gullet, drawn by gravity down deep into the belly of the monster — her womb and three children with destination.

Wrapped in skintight altex - devices and tools embedded straplessly, forming strange organesque bulks and flowing lines over their forms, one of those onboard hauled themselves weightlessly through a corridor — hand tightly gripping the motorized guide-rail. Shrapnel drifted past their vision - a bubble wrapped about their head, fingerish plates along cheekbone and jawline. Beneath, dark brown eyes and black hair, pale Yamataian features.

Hand to console, they hauled themselves up through an access hub at the centre of the small vessel’s neck into a docked shuttle serving as a control hub along with three others at its head. More metal. No sound whatsoever.

Working the controls was a pale figure, devoid of the same suit in little more than black material covering their body in a way almost product-like, disappearing into gradient: Their skin devoid of offending areas and their exterior like some finely airbrushed motor vehicle — a lithe adolescent construct with ruffled white hair and dark cerise eyes.

Pale globs of liquid sang through the air of its blood. A panel had blown out and had been forcefully repaired though the white smears suggested with great difficulty during the intense decompression. Foam, welding and backup panels covered the surface: Small spherical machines on thin wires outside sparks flying as they sealed up the hull from outside.

“What’s the situation?” the figure in the space-suit called out with a slight gruff to their voice -- speaking loudly over the drumming sound of metal against the hull like heavy rain.

“Hull ok, environment returning to normal within the hour.”

“Cause?”

“The frontal blast-shield didn’t purge cleanly at stage 2 — one of the percussive bolts didn’t go off so we had to sever it manually using the third backup. We struck the resulting debris.”

“So the Rook isn’t quite ready for prime-time. How’s payload?”

“Intact, zero losses. Power had to be re-routed from the ignition systems but the collectors are green and our trajectory changes have already been calculated and implemented.”

“Space without distortion or FTL is agony… The modem?”

“No damage. Its functional, actually… Well…”

“Go on.”

“We failed to establish contact with Nursery One. We believe a power-struggle is in progress but there’s not much more we can tell than that. Phantasmagorica may be compromised.”
A deep sigh, head rocked back. Deep deep breaths. Focus. Thinking, thinking...

“For fuck's sake... Alright, alright. We’ll be fine - we can do guidance computation ourselves without telescopic triangulation -- we're meant to be self-sufficient. Do you know the scale of the power struggle?"

"White moon is under lockdown until further notice."

The pattering became louder. Voices were now shouting to be heard.

"Nobody in, nobody out; GREAT. I’m getting back into the freezer until this shit blows over. Wake me up when we approach around 2 A.U. of the terminal structure or whenever you think I should give anything even remotely resembling a shit about this entire goddamn mission.”

“That’s against protocol. You’re meant to be wide awake and physical.”

“Objection: If we’re struck, we are either sublimated on contact, rendered with radiation poisoning or I’m stranded in a dying ship. As the only true member and living person onboard this fucking mission, I reserve and demand my right to pass away peacefully in my sleep in the event of catastrophic fuckup on your part, rather than be subjected to the truly unimaginable horrors of interstellar travel. You’re more than qualified to run this miserable antiquated crate, aren’t you? ”

“Rhetorical response suggests stress. So this is for the purpose of psychological hygine, which will be essential on arrival, am I understanding correctly?”

The figure in the suit sighed, lumbering as they spoke over the comms, already skulking back down the corridor miserably.

“…Yes. For god’s sake YES. How many times do I have to explain this goddamn shit to you? What is WRONG with you? Was your construct based on a total fucking idiot?”

“...Your objection is noted. MOTHER reports you are permitted two months in stasis.”

“Finally, lord have mercy. Like I even need to ask - I outrank you — I’m a person, you’re equipment. I don’t even want to be here.”

“Technically, you do outrank me but I am capable of direct over-authorization for the purpose of your wellbeing as a primary asset of the mission, as authorized by the Librarian and the Physician.”

“…Get fucked.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh and and if you get that modem working, tell that stuck up bitch Librarian to go fuck herself too for roping me into this cacophony of suicidal bullshit. As for the physician, she's too cripple and fucking bent to even fuck herself.”

“Message to be relayed on transmission availability and objection to mission spec is noted."

“Don't you play coy with me. Go fuck yourself, you sardonic sack of shit. And if I ever meet the miserable Lorath sack of shit template you're based on, fuck her too.”

"Sleep well, commander.”



 
♫ Moon - "The Nursery"

“You have been awakened due to a stasis failure. Another hour and you'd be dead: Cabin decompression caused by hull fragmentation means at this point you cannot remove your environment suit. I am currently determining an adequate solution for waste recycling using the fabricators.”

“You know at this point I’m honestly wishing they didn’t make your appearance so sexy. For a 100 series, you’re not at all like a robot or a machine, obviously. That monotone voice is just amazing. Did they really have to cold-wipe your emotional responses?”

“Given your sexual K-typing I could be reconfigured within the hour to assume a male form. Would this--”

“I think that would be worse. I mean, I’ve seen your idea of male and you look like my brother in law.”

“But your brother in law is dead.”

“…Yeah, don’t remind me. I do recall that happening.”

“Would you like me to read you a book, for a simple change of pace?”

“Some how, I don’t think listening to the memoirs of Hanako Ketsuri yet again is going to improve my time out here.”

“Yes, you should have been more specific when you deferred to my preferences before we disconnected.”

“If I didn’t know we were going to lose our network connection - otherwise I might have splurged and downloaded the whole cast of the Sakura so I have something slightly less raunchy to listen to.”

“All audio accounts and transcripts associated with the YSS Sakura and Sakura II are rated—”

“Yes, I know. What a discovery. We can add that to the list, can’t we?”

“What list?”

“The list of ridiculous humiliating horseshit discoveries I’ve made.”

“I fear such a list would be too large to be viewable without a dedicated parsing engine, which I am unable to downlo—”

“Did you just sass me?”

“The SAS module is currently unavailable.”

“Ha. Ha. Give me the rundown again?”

“1.4 months of oxygen. 2.9 months of power. 8.1 months of fuel. 7.9 months of water. 3.4 months of food. Cabin pressure zero. Engines inoperable. Current velocity 2.2 million kilometers a second. Fragmentation wall is functioning. We approach sub-orbital position switching for Entropy in approximately 100 days. Detected singularity is increasing in volume 0.22% 100 hours. Communications still down.”

“Does it scare you?”

“What?”

“When we catastrophically fail and we become spaghetti, if we don’t run out of oxygen or freeze to death first.”

“I am only scared if you are scared.”

“I literally have no idea what that means. Play the memoirs again?”

“Would you like to huddle for warmth or social contact to alleviate stress?”

“You know I can’t do anything through this suit, right? You’d never let me do this normally.”

“I fear your psychological hygiene is falling into unsafe levels as a potential Class-C cognitive hazard and wish to keep you motivated.”

“So basically you’re letting me fondle you while you read dirty stories so I don’t want to kill myself.”

“This would be an apt description.”

“Dirty girl.”
 
Last edited:
“Franz.”

“Franz.”

A klaxon sounded, faintly.

“Franz.”

Discreet.

“Franz.”

Polite.

“Franz.”

Soft.

“Franz.”

Prominent.

“Franz.”

Pulsating.

“Franz.”

Thumping.

“Franz.”

Vibrating.

“Franz.”

Deafening.

“Fra--.”

“What!? What? Kill the alarm.”

“I have detected a coolant leak in engine pod four. We are currently venting liquid Hesanium-3 into space”

Franz yawned from within his suit, visibly disoriented.

“Holyshit I can’t hear a fucking thing with that thing on. Start again.”

“…Franz, I have detected--”

“Yeah, yeah, the second part.”

“We are venting heavy coolant.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there isn’t a whole load of fuck on this shit heap that’s not currently spraying out into space at this point. If the bitch who designed this thing wasn’t playing with herself and shitposting on social media and instead focused not on trying to fit in stupid scifi references and made this bucket of shit work, we’d be moving right now and a whole lot less fucked.”

“I am that bitch, Franz.”

“No, you’re a construct of her, but you serve as an apt punching bag.”

“You have never struck me.”

“What we did earlier was pretty violent. I mean, you’re tiny — built like a --”

“The bulkheads moved.”

“That’s the closest thing to a compliment you’ve ever given me.”

“The cooland failure may indicate a means to re-activate the engines and resume our journey.”

“The coolant failure may indicate a means of reactivating the engines.”

“Do you even listen to me?”

“I get enough of you.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“If we are able to identify the cause, we will be able to determine a possible fix for the engine assembly and resume our journey.”

Franz sighed, exasperated.

“And how do I do that?”

“You may reach the coolant exchangers by purging the outer protective assembly and detatching the heat shield from truss six using manual override due to linkage failure”

“This means going outdoors. As one hikikomori to another, you know I don’t like going outside, right?”

“Yes, Franz. I know.”

“Get the lockwire, I’ll—”

“The lockwire and harpoon assembly is inoperable. You will have to use the mobile thruster attachment in free motion.”

“But the MTA is so hard to use… How much fuel do we have?”

“Enough.”

“Aiesu, be specific.”

“3 hours.”

“…And how long is this procedure going to take?”

“Two hours, fourty five minutes tops.”

Hissing through teeth.

“Its really nice to know you care so much about my welfare.”

“Your welfare is one of my primary programming directives. It is superseded only by the mission.”

“If I’m not back in two hours, issue a brown alert on my behalf.”

“Will do, Franz. Good luck.”
 
“Aiesu, Status?”

“What?”

“I said status.”

“Main engines restored, heat-shield attachments restored, main power nominal — main subsystems wide-awake and physical.” She audiably sighed. “Enjoy stretching your legs?”​

Franz frowned.

“This thing is so backwards I literally have no idea why we’re using it.”

“Everything here, ship includes is as raw and basic as it can be so there’s nothing we can endure a digital attack from.”

“Fuck, no wonder everything here is so shitty…”

“I’m part of this crate, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re a version 1 construct built into the walls. As far as I know, version 1’s don’t support offboard loading, which makes sense now, given what we’re up against. Congrats, Aiesu: You’re basic.”

“I’m flattered.”

”Given that most androids are too advanced… What was actually chosen for the body I’ve seen you use?”

“Yes a remodelled Lolifeta. ”

“Those Yamataian ball jointed love-dolls with the onnacup between their legs? Are you serious?”

“You understand now why I die a little inside every time you want to see me without one of those stupid space-suits on — and why I refuse to take them off.”

“…Is it… functional? I mean companionship has to be one of your base progra--”

“Kill yourself.”

The alarm sounded, pining in a tone neither had heard yet.

“…That’s unexpected.”

“What is?”

“We’re approaching Entropy two months early… W-We just skipped 20% of our journey... This doesn't make any sense, I-”

“Did you miscalculate?”​

Franz was already moving toward the window. The two watched, both impressed by the impasse of a planet, glowing and swirling hotly beneath them in anger — all around them flittering flashes of plasma thousands of miles across… Swirling clouds and the massive batteries of force on the hull - charged particles glowing hotly against the outer plating.

“Does it look like I fucking miscalculated?"

Aiesu was audiably panicked. The ship wasn't designed to approach a terrestrial body this closely. The two looked at eachother hearing the hull groan."

"So its true what they say... Shit shit shit all doors to lock, thermoplast out, heat-shield to maximum and angle us away from Entropy...Full burn!"

"Loading thermonuclear exchanger. Live rounds will be ready in one minute for full burn -- pusher-plate meets expected perameters... What good is that going to do us?!"

"We've still got enough bombs to stay out of Entropy's orbit..."

"But then we're fucked for our return journey!"

"What do you care? You're a fucking machine. We pass Phantasmagorica on the way. There's manufacturing systems. Lots of friends, I hope."

"THAT COULD TAKE MONTHS! WE'VE GOT LIKE TWO MONTHS UNTIL HERALD HITS CRITICALITY FOR THE JUMP."

"That's fine, it just means we're stuck out here. We don't get to go on the first trip. That's fine."

"But-"

"But nothing. I might be playing the game with the other twelve but making sure any of us get out of this horseshit dying universe is the priority."

"...What if I say no? Your health-"

"You're a machine. I don't have to ask you to do anything."

"Bomb ready, preparing to deploy."​

The vessel, a redwork of pylons, plates and massive industrial spheres connected via a central truss connected four shuttle like craft up front. It was enormous in scale, a terrifying work of engineering from ages so far past that they were scarcely imaginable to those today as even remotely safe.

With the plates readied, two single spheres the size of a modern fighter were tossed rearward and then in the silence, brilliant light as it aligned behind the craft. The light struck the two large triangular plates. The acceleration had Franz' cheeks dancing against his teeth as he struggled for air: the cacophony of town-sized metal flung forward - seemingly gliding in rumbling silence over Entropy. Its long arms lightning lashed at the craft causing emergency tones to go off and the cabin lights to flicker dauntingly: alarms screaming as the whole hull trembled in the night.

"Come on come on come on..."

"Picking up speed... 7.8 kilometers a second..."

"Where the fuck did we lose our velocity in the first place?!"

"Atmospheric friction"

"But we're in sp--"

"The nebulae."​

Franz gripped the hand-rests to his chair and as he reached down, biting into a bit built into the interior of his suit - head banging against the inside padding now as sweat dripped down the inside of the faceplate towards the planet as they pulled away.

Pipes burst in the cabin, blowing gas furiously through. Franz, still white knuckled and digging into his bit was punching numbers -- a blower singalling, sucking the gas out and a layer of plast wrapping the pipe in picojelly to seal it up.

The cabin was no longer shaking.

"Did we make it?"

"We did..."

"But?"

"...We lost one of the habitat modules and we've vented enough O2 to mean you're going to need to go into stasis in around the next 40 hours."

"Fine by me. Monopole storage?"

"Intact."

"Great! This is cause for celebration! Get that stupid doll out of storage."

"What?"

"You're here for my psychological hygiene. Let's clean up."

"But its intentionally made too young to be even remotely..."

"I'll adapt."

"Fucking creep..."​
 
The two sat with the low acceleration of the craft turning the back wall of the cabin into a floor. Helmets off, side by side. At some point, the two had bickered over how beer was a poor choice to bring onboard. Regardless, they both sat with a can. He drank but she seemed content to mime — having explained that a simulation of the experience was probably better for her than pouring liquid into a body without anywhere for it to go.

“Well, the odds are good you’re probably not waking up if I go into stasis — if I don’t wake up, there’s no reason to boot you up again and doing so would be pretty cruel — So we may as well be nice to eachother for the sake of levity. You first.“

“Alright. Candidly, why did you join in the first place?”

“What, the Consortium? Big question… I got my start as a gambling addict and to pay for it, I got money from people. I was very good at getting what I wanted out of people in high places.“

“So you thought you’d gamble again?” the construct huffed.

“I had connections MOTHER wanted. There were some things it couldn’t get its hands on.”​

Aiesu laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“The Librarian calls Mother ‘they’. And you, ‘it’. No wonder we’re dying: we’ve got the internal consistency of a Yamataian war report.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Aiesu, I mean.”

“‘She’.”

“That’s a lot of respect,” Franz whistled.

“Well, Aiesu is nothing on her own.”

“Why, what is she, really? A few lines of code in a server? A junkie?”

“Both. She’s a cripple in a dorm-room who marks papers and spends all day thinking about suicide or getting high or copying herself because she’s dying. She really does look like a child, you know. She has a disease that means she has to take medication that stops her from producing growth hormone and introducing it to the body would kill her.“

“Hence constructs… And they sent you to me?”

“Well, she’s very qualified. And no, I’m not her. I have her memories and experiences but I’m altered just enough to function like a normal person.”

“That and a digital fix is a line of code.”

“Pretty much. So why were you selected for this mission?”​

Franz smiled.

“I don’t like constructs. No offense.”

“None taken. We have code just to cancel out the personal horror of realizing we’re a copy of a real person: I’m well aware of how creepy I must seem.”

“I don’t know. You’re not that bad”​

Aiesu could feel his eyes touching her through her vac-suit, sending a cold shiver down her back.

“You’ve been drinking and you’ve been alone for several months. Right now you’d hump anything with an orifice. So back to the juicy stuff. Why were you selected? I wasn’t told.“

“I refused to have any made.”

“Really?”​

There was genuine surprise.

“Really. I’m actually the only member without any so I can’t be compromised. If you’re talking to me, you’re talking to me.

“I’d say I’m honored but I’d be lying.“

“Then why don’t you do the honors?“

“Please. The real me might be starved for attention but—”

“But what?”

“H-Hey!”

“What? You’re not putting up much of a fight…”

“I’m Lorath: I don’t need to defend myself. You don’t count as an attack you stupid drunkard!”

“Ah, so you’re immune to my cha—OW OW OW OW! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO!”

“Say sorry.”

“SORRY. SORRY.”

“Alright, that’s all you’re getting.”

“Ow fuck that’s one hell of a grip.”

“Up to four-hundred foot-pounds. I could break every bone in your hand if I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“So if anybody tries to shake your hand, I’m there to shake theirs.”

“…Re-purposing a sex-robot for combat?”

“You thought Aiesu would send something stock on this mission? Please, her ego is far too large for it.”

“So she removed those parts of you?”

“You wish. Sex is a great motivator.”

“Well then…”

“More specifically, having it dangled over your head and not getting any.”

“And you know this how?”​

The construct gave Franz a terribly stern look.

There was disappointment thousands of miles wide in her glassy eyes.
 
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