Also, Cargo Drop Plan C
-Butcher Cows, take skin and dump/eat meat. (~2 Tons)
-Butcher Goats, take skin and wool, dump/eat meat. (~1 Ton)
-Butcher Chickens, take feathers, dump/eat meat. (~1 Ton)
-Dump 50 sets of fishing tools. (.25 Tons)
-Dump 50 sets of hunting tools. (.25 Tons)
-Dump 5,000 bullets. (.5 Tons)
-Dump 10 tons of Coal. (10 Tons)
-Make up the remainder from the livestock by rounding up detritus and rusty scrap, then dumping that.
Overboard!The first thing that happens in response to the flooding is to throw overboard ten tons of coal. With considerable effort, the crane is erected to hoist coal out of the bunkers, and scoop by scoop, thrown into the sea. This reduces the immediate danger, but there's still five tons to go. Five thousand bullets are brought above deck to be thrown overboard, after an emergency target practice session is called to use up some of them. A hundred or so nets, harpoons, and animal traps are also thrown overboard. Then, after a meeting with the Katzar, it is settled: ALL of the livestock will be butchered. There's just not much chance they're be able to graze, especially during the winter as it is now, so they're wasting food. So, several people are assigned to each large animal and nearly everyone who isn't busy is told to go butcher a chicken. [1d6:5] From among the medicine, chemicals suitable to leather tanning are found, the doctor and lead hunter coordinate some colonists to the task of saving all of the skin on every animal, as you may soon have dire need of it. The result (although still in the tanning process) is 2 cow skins, 20 goat skins, and 450 chicken skins (some of the people butchering chickens ruined the skins), although those are small, miserable pieces of leather. In the name of expedience bones are mostly thrown overboard rather than ground for bonemeal, leaving 2000 rations worth of meat- but it all must go. The Katzar calls a great feast, colonists stuff themselves, and for a while the mood is merry, allowing people to forget the oppressive cold outside, the recent death, the damage to the ship, and the long road ahead.
It is Day 5The last couple of days have been very busy, mostly with the labor of clearing excess cargo and butchering livestock. Other progress has been made as well, however: [1d6:4] the heavy lathe, thankfully, has been repaired. Two of your expert mechanics spent the last couple of days carefully hammering the shaft true, as well as replacing a bearing from the precious scarce supply of spare parts, with the help of a few assistants of course. The machine shop is fully operational, you can use it to keep your equipment in good repair and, if you find a source of metal or decided to melt down parts of the ship, you should even be able to manufacture things from scratch. [1d6:3] Using some walls that don't seem to be load bearing, the holes in the deck have been repaired. It's now safe to walk around above deck where the bomb hit, as well as the two decks below it, without fear of falling into a hole, although the metal sheets bolted onto the wooden deck are unsightly and accrue ice quickly. One man has had his arm broken during the work, but the doctor already has him in a splint and he is expected to make a full recovery soon.
Another bit of good news is, everyone has been so stuffed from feasting on fresh meat that the rations haven't been touched for a couple days, you've bought yourselves some more precious time to start finding a steady food source once you make landfall.
-998 Individuals
-1 Doctor
-1 Architect
-1 Mining Expert
-3 Mechanical Manufacturing/Repair experts
-1 Agriculture Expert
-1 Electrical/Radio Engineer
-1 Theoretical Physicist
-1 Expert Hunter
--------------
100 Assigned to Cooking & Cleaning
100 Assigned to running the Crabby Wench
797 Idle
1 Recovering from injury
Main Cargo Hold:
-Steel Foundry
-Machining Tools
-21,870 Food rations (Enough for about 22 days, consuming 998/day) consisting mainly of Vlanladosian products: Fish, beets, potatoes, and barley-wheat.
-450 Chicken Skins (tanning)
-20 Goat Skins (tanning)
-2 Cow skins (tanning)
-350 sets of fishing tools
-200 sets of construction tools
-200 sets of farming tools
-150 sets of hunting tools (spears and traps)
-200 VL-41 "Dove" Semi-Automatic Rifles
-35,000 rifle bullets
-1 Crane (all mobile equipment is steam powered)
-1 Excavator
-1 Tractor
-4 Tons of coal
-0.9 Tons of medicine
Fuel Reserves
-10 tons of coal should be left over when you reach Antarctica. This is an estimate, and dependent on how long it actually takes you to get there. At this rate, you will need to acquire more coal before leaving Antarctica.
In the dark of night, your radio begins beeping. The radio operator furiously scribbles as a long messages spells itself out in Morse code. He hurriedly wakes up the Katzar and the decision makers on the ship, and shows you what he has written:
UNIDENTIFIED SHIP
THIS IS THE UFS GRIFFIN
RADAR CONTACT SHOWS YOUR COURSE INTERSECTS WITH CHARTED ICEBERGS
CHANGE BEARING TO 165 IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID COLLISION
It's terribly foggy, and there is a genuine risk that an iceberg or other obstacle could loom out of the water before there's time to avoid it. But, from the "UFS" prefix of the other ship's name, it appears to be a Forenian ship- some of the crew say they shouldn't be trusted, they may have bombed the
Crabby Wench on purpose that fateful night before embarking. What will you do?
Author
Topic: Exodus from Vlanlados (Read 27232 times)