212 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
212 lines
7.0 KiB
Plaintext
Title: Internal comms back
|
|
Author: Shift 3 of the Liberty Eagle
|
|
/* vim: set syntax=fountain: */
|
|
Series: Shipping Containers: Liberty Eagle (Shift 3)
|
|
Episode: 101
|
|
Contact: Copyright © 2018 S.W. Black
|
|
|
|
Notes:
|
|
Those who want to put on an audio or visual production
|
|
of this reality show in your local region of space and
|
|
time will probably want to first make sure you follow
|
|
your local procedure to claim copyright.
|
|
|
|
====
|
|
|
|
~ In our shipping containers you can find
|
|
~ distant kin, perhaps nice or kind.
|
|
~ Guiding the ship: Dirk is smart but rude;
|
|
~ Mandy loves first; Sal can be crude;
|
|
~ Ty does what he wants; The Captain
|
|
~ guides the friends, while R just captions.
|
|
|
|
.Within the ship (preface)
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
We missed the excitement of the shift-change, but we're
|
|
broadcasting now! I am the dedicated system tasked with
|
|
transcribing the voices and actions of the crew for the
|
|
QEC audience. I also have the responsibility of
|
|
monitoring their behavior and deciding what is relevant
|
|
to share. What have they been up to ...?
|
|
|
|
.On the BRIDGE (0065-W10-5 08:28)
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
Because the Liberty Eagle is a settlement ship, each
|
|
station on the bridge is designed to be broken down
|
|
for parts once it lands. There are four stations
|
|
against walls of a small room, and in the middle in
|
|
sits the captain's chair.
|
|
|
|
The CAPTAIN has a 24 hour day, while the four other
|
|
members of the crew have a 28 hour day. It is currently
|
|
time when SAL's bridge duty overlaps with the CAPTAIN.
|
|
|
|
While recommended hair styles do prefer styles that
|
|
are short enough to never touch their eyes, SAL
|
|
has shaved her head. We will get back to this later.
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
Captain, I got the internal comms working again.
|
|
|
|
CAPTAIN
|
|
Good. That will help when someone goes to clean out
|
|
the mess in food tank two.
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
There's a discrepancy with the CAPTAIN's age in the
|
|
system. His voice print is degraded compared to
|
|
what it should be. Suit monitors are offline, so
|
|
unable to double-check with that data.
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
There's something else. I noticed when I got them
|
|
back online, one of the systems restarted and is
|
|
now continuously monitoring them.
|
|
|
|
CAPTAIN
|
|
What? Shut it down. We don't need it.
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
I think we do. It's tied pretty deep in to the
|
|
comm system. It's possible that it was an attempt
|
|
to shut this system down that killed our comms.
|
|
|
|
CAPTAIN
|
|
Are we going to get prompts and stuff? It's the
|
|
"R. Announcer" system. You know, from the show
|
|
we signed on for when we got the job. Did you
|
|
at least kill the prompts?
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
SAL shrugged.
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
I didn't think it had prompts. It was never
|
|
designed for gimmicks, just to record us.
|
|
I mean, it'll roll in interview and stuff from
|
|
before we left, but it was never one of those
|
|
things that could do physical stunts with us.
|
|
|
|
.In a booth before launching (no timestamp)
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
I love my hair. I've been told I can be a bit
|
|
intimidating, but I think my hair helps me be
|
|
friendly and approachable. If I really wanted
|
|
to be intimidating, I think I'd have to shave
|
|
my head.
|
|
|
|
It's really one of the things I'm worried about
|
|
when it comes to the 20 year shifts, you know?
|
|
I'm worried that when we land and I'm finally
|
|
around men with testicles instead of just
|
|
implanted testosterone factories, that I'll be
|
|
old enough that my hair may have fallen out.
|
|
|
|
At least they expect folks to get a little
|
|
action on the trip, and with permanent birth
|
|
control applied to the men! It could be really
|
|
fun!
|
|
|
|
I'm hoping that the folks I trained with that
|
|
are slated to be in my shift make it through
|
|
the process alright. Some of them seem nice.
|
|
|
|
I know most of our passengers are formerly
|
|
homeless who, through the Homeless Storage
|
|
Sugar program have been dried out, but if
|
|
something goes wrong, you're looking at a
|
|
piece of your brain sticking to your skull
|
|
and tearing itself off, and I don't care
|
|
how safe they say it is, it feels really
|
|
dangerous.
|
|
|
|
.On the Bridge: (0065-W10-5 Present)
|
|
|
|
CAPTAIN
|
|
Do you know if those old interviews are still
|
|
in the system, or whether they got deleted?
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
What? I don't know.
|
|
|
|
.In a booth before launching (no timestamp)
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
There are some discrepancies with the records. I am
|
|
unsure of Captain's surname, though he is associated
|
|
with these transcriptions and I know that he's a
|
|
murdering bastard who will die too quickly for
|
|
justice, if he doesn't doom us all first.
|
|
|
|
CAPTAIN
|
|
What do you mean, none of my church's books or study
|
|
materials will be available? They've been around for
|
|
fifty years or more. The Bible they're based on was
|
|
one of the first books ever published.
|
|
|
|
Sure, I get that the King James Version is going to
|
|
be available, but the language in that was archaic
|
|
even when it was first published. I need my church's
|
|
material!
|
|
|
|
Are you serious? I don't believe this.
|
|
|
|
How can these ships really have no books on them
|
|
except from 1923 Old Earth Common Era and earlier?
|
|
|
|
.Within the ship
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
From the Handbook, "Our ship was launched to colonize
|
|
far-away places. Those that paid for it knew the folly
|
|
of trying to maintain copyright without instantaneous
|
|
banking.
|
|
|
|
"While the QEC may provide instantaneous communication,
|
|
banking requires a level technological playing field
|
|
for the encryption to work. A ship traveling for
|
|
100 years becomes an archaic piece of technology
|
|
before it even lands, and it won't be able to
|
|
handle modern encryption at best, and a
|
|
world-computer designed to break the colonization
|
|
encryption protocols before landing at worst. While
|
|
we don't expect any of those problems to happen on
|
|
*your* vessels, it is still better to send ships
|
|
with only public domain material.
|
|
|
|
"Don't let it bring you down. After all, you and
|
|
any surviving friends or family members get to
|
|
browse from the complete library of on-board media and
|
|
play with it even before you take off. And all
|
|
legally, too! No prisons for media pirates on your
|
|
new planet!"
|
|
|
|
.In her bunk: (0065-W10-5 18:12)
|
|
|
|
SAL
|
|
We've been at our shift for five years and we're
|
|
still trying to figure out the mess the previous
|
|
shifts made.
|
|
|
|
I also know something is off with the Captain.
|
|
He pretends like he has no idea about what happened
|
|
around here, but I also know that he captained the
|
|
previous shift. He should have a really good idea
|
|
as to what happened in some cases.
|
|
|
|
I mean, the body tainting food tank two, right?
|
|
I refuse to believe he doesn't know whose it was.
|
|
I really wouldn't be surprised if he hauled his
|
|
saggy butt down there personally, just so he could
|
|
make sure there was no lingering evidence.
|
|
|
|
.Within the ship (addendum)
|
|
|
|
R. ANNOUNCER
|
|
Join our crew as they manage the boredom of
|
|
the middle of a five-shift 100 year mission.
|
|
|