[Imperium Galactica] The Dire, Dire Descent

[Paxiosolange]

Spoiler: SYNOPSIS

"Well... My dear lord chamberlain, we have had a bit of an "oupsies!" up in the bridge."

Heraut Hyntagenet—the Duke and Vidame of the House of Hyntagenet, is hardly a beacon of leadership. His sadistic, hedonistic, and unapologetic pleasures have made him somewhat of a joke among his council, among his own subjects, and even among the great houses of the Imperium. After returning home shamelessly having failed to ascend to the office of Emperor, the Vidame awakes to find himself in a precarious situation: lost in space, and rapidly verging towards the galaxy's gravitational core. The Vidame realizes that an act of sabotage has been inflicted against his starship, and he must take upon himself the mantle of leadership if he is ever to survive the adversities to come.

LOST IN SPACE​

There was a profound silence as the Vidame Herault Hyntagenet awoke, his face stuck to the freezing cold floor of his corvette-spaceship. The lights were off, the faint buzzing of the radiators had gone silent. Herault lifted his face to find a trickling of blood from his nose onto the floor. The peaceful off-pink lights of the corvette had gone out entirely and were replaced by the blinding, direct emergency lights which only partially lit up the corridors and rooms of the space ship.

"Well, well... Someone's been a bit kinky..."

Herault finally stood up to find that the air was freezing-cold as well, his breath left a trail of vapour with each slow release. He hurried to the washroom to clean his face and don a large mink housecoat. The water was unspeakably frigid. Herault recalled he had taken a nap, although when he had gone down he was not sure. He did know from the electrical fault that whatever had happened which threw him from his bed and rendered him incapacitated had occurred over an hour ago. Herault reported to the starship terminal in his chambers which glowed a faint, despondent green typical of computers supplied with emergency power.

"Ordinateur, what is happening s'il te plait?"

There was a brief flickering on the interface, followed by a static message which popped up and flashes repeatedly on the screen.

"Technical update for the BC-III-Corvette: Controlled trajectory changes at 14:12, 14:19, 14:25, and 14:30. Uncontrolled trajectory change at 14:32 , life support disconnected at 14:32. Thermal radiators disconnected at 14:32. Supplementary power active at 14:32."

Herault scoffed, evidently something had forced the ship off course.

"Ordinateur, what is our location?"
"Problem: Transponder Radio-location disconnected. Last reported location was at 14:12, 504 astronomical units from Le Coeur d'Ouridran."

Herault shot up from his seat before the terminal in shock.

"The galactic core! No, no, no, no, no! Someone has been extremely naughty!"

Herault recused himself from his chambers as he used a manual level to reveal the corridor outside. The hall was lit up by a series of emergency spotlights, and he moved quickly through the area towards the bridge. Passing through the mess hall of the starship, Herault noticed that the all windows within the corvette had been covered in breach shields, another terrible indicator that something had collided with the vessel. As he continued through the ship, Herault now needed to know what had happened, where everyone was, and why his corvette was anywhere near the galactic core. Upon opening the doors to the bridge, Herault was shocked to find the bridge unmanned, with bright-red status messages at their posts.

"Ordinateur, what is the nature of the power fault?"
"Problem: Mass short-circuiting from power bay. Would you like me to restore all circuit breakers?"
"I don't have much else to do here, Ordinateur."

There was a brief pause. The lights on all displays flickered for a moment.

"Problem: Power bay empty. Please reinstall fuel-material."
"Reinstall fuel-material? Can't you just do that?"
"Problem: Reinstallation equipment missing. Power bay has been eliminated."
"Eliminated? You mean it's been destroyed by whatever collided with the vessel?"
"Obscurity: Speculation"
"Well then... You are just a smart little computer aren't ya? Can you redirect emergency power to the grid?"

Another brief pause. This time, all the lights and sounds across the bridge went black. Following another moment of nothing, the bridge came back to life. The computer displays were finally restored to normal, the pinkish lights of the corvette returned, and the breach shields upon the bridge's windows finally began to retract back into the ship, revealing a horrifying sight. Herault's dissatisfied grin fell into an emotionless frown as his eyes studied the monster that was before the ship. Not only a couple dozen astronomical units way, Herault could see a lensing effect contorting a pinkish-yellow ring of material contorting and reflecting across a subsuming void.

"Alright, now you really need to tell me what's going on..." Herault whispered.
"Technical update for the BC-III-Corvette: 108 astronomical units from Le Coeur d'Ouridran. Communications disconnected. Power bay disconnected. Power bay eliminated."
"What happened at 14:12?" Herault asked.
"Blackbox indicates collision with unidentified object within black hole accretion disk yielding high energy output. Redirect recommendations went unheeded."
"Do you think this was deliberate?"
"Speculation connected. Sabotage weighed a conclusive factor. Unauthorized rendez-vous with unidentified starship recorded at 14:05."
"Did you record the starship's identity?"
"Affirmative."
"Well have we made a distress signal?"
"Problem: Communications disconnected."

Herault proceeded to grunt before kicking a rolling down the aisle of the bridge.

"Well what in heaven's name is the problem here? Turn them on!"
"Communications eliminated."

Herault laughed.

"Well what about the rest of the crew?"
"Crew command officers 1, 18, and 42 left the BC-III-Corvette at 14:31."

Herault shook his head and sighed. It was now clear to him exactly what had occurred. This was no accident, and the possibility of mutiny was not a theory to be discredited until security intelligence from the bridge was made available to him.

"Ordinateur, I want you to alert all crew to the mess hall immediately. Then, I want you to provide me a physical copy of the vessel's coordinates and video from the bridge between 14:00 and 15:00.
"Affirmative."

 

[Paxiosolange]

LOST IN SPACE
​

The lights flickered above the lavatory mirror as Herault looked directly within it. His eyes caught his eyes and for a moment his character faded away as his anxieties spun rapidly around him. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, before opening them to find that his unbothered, vulgar soul had returned within him.

"I can lead..." He assured himself, "I'm a leader... I lead under the cov—"
"Herault!" A voice shrieked through the lavatory door.

Herault turned as the door slid open. The ill-faced Chamberlain Rollant appeared before him with a slightly aggravated, slightly concerned face.

"What is going on here? Why is everyone in the bridge?"
"Well... My dear lord chamberlain, we have had a bit of an "oupsies!" up in the bridge."
"What did you do this time?"
"The suspense must be killing you... Silly goose."

Rollant left the room without a second glance and proceeded out, back into the mess hall. Herault soon followed after applying a thick, black eyeshadow around his lids. There may have been twenty to thirty people aboard the corvette—ambassadors, ministers, clerics, scientists, engineers, and of course the nauseating Chamberlain. As Herault entered the mess hall, he was quick the come and greet the worried staff, moving through the room say hello.

"In this moment, the pilots would be addressing you my friends, but unfortunately we have interceded in a dire affair. I returned to the bridge this afternoon while everyone was sleeping in their chambers and found that we have been betrayed."

Murmurs erupted from the crowd. Herault quickly took a microfilm-projector and aimed it towards the screen in the mess hall and displayed the security footage obtained from the central computer.

"It seems that our pilots were saboteurs, who had planned initially to set the ship on a crash course with an asteroid and rendezvous with another vessel after abandoning ship, they shut off all automated steering. Two of our pilots were not party to this plan and were killed in the incident. Heureusement, our ship's central computer managed to make several small RCS manoeuvres in lieu of our thrusters in order to assure that our impact would be as light as possible, although it did leave a mark on my pretty little forehead."

There was a bout of silence. Herault cleared his throat.

"But these saboteurs did in fact have a back-up plan. Our trajectory has been skewed so that any remnant of the ship would be consumed by... By an approaching singularity."
"What!?" Someone called out.
"What singularity!?" Someone else cried.

The congregation suddenly became restless.

"Listen... This is not what we're going to do. We're not going to freak out or turn out back on a solution just so that we can have our own personal meltdowns. We need to work together." Herault said.
"Why should we let him?" Chamberlain Rollant spoke out from the crowd.
"Pardon me?"
"Why should we let the Vidame speak for the situation? He's never been able to govern himself accordingly let alone his subjects!"

Herault cackled.

"Instant mutiny, eh? That's your solution, Rollant?"
"You are a wild child and I would never put my life in your hands."
"All I am asking is that we collaborate. Just for today. Can we just collaborate for today and see about beheading me tomorrow, please?"

Rollant scoffed.

"Okay... Okay... Our transmissions are down too. We can't move, we can't communicate, and we only have backup power for so long... Luckily, we are six hours past our estimated time of arrival, which means someone has to have noticed that we are missing, but I suspect they won't know where to look nor how long we've been off-course. We need skilled minds to go to work to preserve our ship and its safety. Last time I checked, we were 463 astronomical units from Le Coeur d'Ouridran. We move one AU towards the singularity every fifteen minutes, that time needs to be smaller and that distance needs to be bigger. Our communications have been blasted to pieces, so I suggest we work on creating a transponder. I'm not an engineer so we'll need our greatest minds to get to work."