[YSS Kanagawa] Prelude

The days had passed in a blur, the helmsman finding a deep eerie uneasiness in the way space seemed so dark and consuming outside his screen for weeks. Any day he wasn't at the controls for a time, he was in engineering, away from that soulless black of a void, deep as if an abyss. Kai wasn't normally superstitious, or even religious, save for his father's believe of the sanctity of life. He knew it must have been far worse for Hinata, already cramped into a ship for weeks on end, then to see that outside. He was happy to have her embrace during the nights, they're what kept him hopeful and sane.

As everything went wrong though on that final day, he wanted to crack, he wanted to crumble. To have such a huge event of discord and ill fortune befall a ship in his hands, well it was definitely a hard burden to bear, even as the idea he may not get to see his daughters for a long time set in. It was a deep sinking terror as every consequence of their sudden reality set in, and as he practically jerked the controls. Willing them to respond, his console dead and controls mostly dead, not even the displays comforting lit with knowledge before him. "Fuck!! Captain, the controls aren't responding at full, main engines are dead, and I can only access RTS and ion sublight to stabilize orientation and maneuver! We need a bypass in the system, something, or we're stuck at a slow cruise sir.", Kai said with a tense curse, relaying the situation to the captain, hoping comms still worked for void sake.

With nothing much more he could do, but keep trying and hope the controls responded. He looked out the screen once more, the empty black now filled with the wondrous phenomenon and formations of alien stars. None were constellations relative to their sector, at least not from their current perspective of viewing them if any were even there. Such different colors then those of nebulae back home, or in general. He shoved down the panic as he wrangled the controls, slowly strong arming the ship to stop it's wild drift, the bow finally turned up, then the ship's rotation steadied mostly. The RTS were fired at what he could with them, slowing the ship's forward flung motion, taking him several long minutes to finally get it to a slow drift. With it under control, he finally was able to breath deep, not having realized he had been holding it in, the straps oh his seat having left his chest sore from the sudden slap back into real space.

His helmsman ship baseball style cap had flown off to land on top of his console, which Kai annoyed, grabbed and slipped back on. "This is why I never joined the SSS.", he mumbled quietly to himself with a nervous chuckle.

Medbay

Taharial looked at the two and sighed as she listened to the conversation between Alphara and Ken. She liked to study things and this was an interesting interaction and only really broke out of her trance when Ken spoke to her "Why thank you sir, but I am sure I will be okay with her." She kindly looked at Alphara and bowed "Sorry I haven't been speaking miss, I haven't really been up to date on my Freespacer biology and how to help them."

She chuckled a little and smiled at the woman "So you are safe here with me, I am more friendly than most." She looked at the towel she had given the woman for covering and sighs "I am sorry that your wake up was not pleasant and it should have been." She had only just realized the man known as Thad had disappeared, but she knew her mind was fixated on the Freespacer and her suspended animation, "So miss, you said about a Madam, but we had found you like you are in this box,this madam must of saved you by doing this." As she talked she went around picking up the equipment the woman dropped when she was scared.

After the cleaning was done which didn't take that long, she went over and sat next to the Freespacer "all I can really offer at the moment, is someone to talk to and look after you while we get you back on your feet." She smiled, this time though it seemed a little more kind than her normally one "if you want, I can take you to the showers, let you clean off then you can borrow some of my clothes, so you don't have to wonder the ship naked."

Bridge

Gen rubbed at the bridge of his nose as the information came back to him. A glance at the damage reports coming in from across the ship only confirmed what he was hearing.

"Alright," he began, composing his thoughts, "I think we need to accept that the ship is a wounded bird for now. We'll get engineering to work on restoring critical systems, but I don't think we'll be flying at full strength for quite a while. Given the distance we've traveled, I don't believe we can expect any Star Army support.

We're on our own, for now," he finished.

The rest of the discussion was on the specifics of their situation. Uncertainty about where they were due to a combination of the nebula blocking out distant stars and the usual long-range navigation systems being damaged. The lack of most, if not all, of the ship's weapons and major systems. Life support was functional, if in dire shape, and only the ship's slowest engines seemed operational.

After what seemed like hours, Rokusai decided that the crew needed some tangible goal to work towards. If only to take their minds off of the worst case scenario.

"The ring itself seems safe enough, now that it's.. powered down," he said, tapping through a few screens. "Sivins-Hei, you wanted to get a closer look. Suit up with a couple of engineers and go take a look. If the shuttle bay doors open, hopefully one of the Raccoon's will still be functional. If not... well, maybe the engineers can sort that out, too."

"As for the rest of us, we'll head to one of the nearby derelicts. I'd like to get a better idea of what caused all this. Maybe we can even salvage something. Sagara-Hei, set course once Sivins and the others have departed. Given our low speed, I don't think we'll be leaving them in the dust anytime soon."

Gen stood and stretched his neck a little, preparing to say a few last inspiring words before dismissing everyone. "Th-"

As the words began to come out, a proximity alarm began to blare. The sensors, damaged as they were, had picked up the intrusion into their local space far later than was appropriate.

The screen showing space before them was suddenly full of what looked to be a pod of massive, tentacled whales. The largest was the size of, if not larger than, the Kanagawa itself. They undulated slowly along, as if moving on some unseen water. Smaller somethings darted among them, like shoals of fish and dolphin. A few, like the unusual, tentacled dolphin analogs, seemed to occasionally pluck one of the 'fish' out of a school for food.

One of the larger creatures was curious about this newcomer to their territory, giving the Kanagawa a furtive nudge as it swam by. The ship shook violently once again, though far less so than before.

Regaining his footing, the Captain just shook his head at the odd sight drifting further out of view. "And, I suppose.. be careful of the local wildlife."