Change Heading!Quickly, the decision is made. First, Kot (bless the poor man, the tumors in his head must finally be taking away his grip on reality) is thrown into the kitchens for "potato peeling duty" and the door is locked behind him. Then, the helmsman is ordered to point the ship on bearing 165, according to the instructions received over the radio. The radio operator taps out a message:
MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED.
ADJUSTING COURSE.
MANY THANKS FROM SS EXODUS
Out of an abundance of caution, above deck patrols are doubled. The
Crabby Wench (which it's still technically called because nobody has found the time to paint "Exodus" on the side) has all of her deck spotlights turned on, the pale yellow beams can barely cut through the fog. Men are standing in groups or pacing up and down the length of the ship, peering into the dark, choppy water below for icebergs or any other obstacles. Despite the aid of the foreign ship, everybody is still on edge knowing that there are icebergs nearby- some of them are on edge just knowing that foreign ships are nearby, for that matter. [1d6:1] Some tense minutes pass before a man on the bow shouts in a panic. "AHEAD, ICEBERG! Steer starboard, STEER STARBOARD NOW!" The helmsman doesn't hear him right away, but after a few seconds of the man on deck shouting and waving his arms, the helmsman swings the wheel as hard to the right as he can. But, it's too late.
Collision!The hull grinds against the iceberg with a long, terrible screech. Of the alarm systems on the ship that are functional, all of them are going off. The ship lists violently, those on the lower decks can hear rushing water. Your mechanical experts act quickly, ordering men to seal bulkheads and limit the flooding. An internal damage assessment will have to wait though, as at least two dozen people on deck have been thrown overboard, if not more. With men overboard in the dark, freezing water, you will have to act quickly to save them. Life boats are lowered to search. At this point it's realized that the ship has only a dozen lifeboats supporting twenty people each, just enough for an ordinary-sized Cannalan crew when the ship's cargo isn't half full of passengers. You all had better hope the
Crabby Wench stays afloat.
The radio operator, tapping the telegraph in a frenzy, sends another message:
SOS SOS
HIT ICEBERG
MEN OVERBOARD
SOS SOS
In a surprisingly short amount of time, two Forenian Cataphract Cruisers emerge from the fog. The spotlights on your ship illuminate their looming, enormous cannons. They signal over radio that they've come to to aid in the rescue operations, and they lower their lifeboats to search. Over the course of a few hours, you and the Forenians have picked up everyone you can, and there are no more heads bobbing in the water. There are scattered reports coming throughout the ship, with people saying who they thought they saw fall overboard, or claiming to have heard a pounding against the walls of a sealed bulkhead. The only thing for it is to call everybody to the main hall for a head count. It takes a while to round everyone up, some people are still trying to do damage control and other need to lifted up to the deck from lifeboats, both the ones originally on the
Crabby Wench and the ones used by the Forenian rescuers.
Finally, after hours more, the last of the people from the lifeboats are aboard, along with a couple dozen Forenian sailors. While the colonists make a headcount, some of the Forenians allow themselves to be interviewed about recent events. "I've never heard of a ship called the UFS Griffin," says one, "and certainly not operating near us. We- that's the
UFS Tiger Justice and the
UFS Old Asyem, are alone out here as far as I know. We're pretty far from normal Forenian waters, but we've been hunting a Cannalan mine layer that went this way." "And, they've probably got away by now," adds a second sailor, "thanks to you lot." Ovechkin, at the head of the main hall, continues down the list of colonists. Everybody is dreary and exhausted from the ordeal, many people have stayed up far later than they hoped to or been waken from sleep by the ship hitting the iceberg. With the bulkheads sealed, at least, she is now stable. It's not clear who went overboard or who might have been in the flooded sections of the ship, but in total, 38 colonists are missing. Additionally, half the farming tools were stashed in one of the areas which has now been flooded, it's not certain if they've fallen out of the ship or if they might be recoverable.
-960 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 960/day) consisting mainly of Vlanladosian products: Fish, beets, potatoes, and barley-wheat.
-450 Chicken Skins (tanning)
-450 Chickens' worth of feathers
-20 Goat Skins (tanning)
-2 Cow skins (tanning)
-350 sets of fishing tools
-200 sets of construction tools
-100 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.
Before the Forenian sailors are about to leave, one of them stops. "Wait." He says to his comrades. "You here, all of you are Vlanladosian, yes?" A few colonists nod. "And that man in the wheelchair, is your Katzar? Ovechkin?" Ovechkin, ever proud, straightens himself up and says, "Katzar Ovechkin Sundqvist Grigorievich, of Vlanlados, Builder of the Factory and Leader of the Colony!" The leader of the Forenian sailors wrinkles his face. "That man is quite well known in Forenia. He's been running a spy ring that nearly brought us all to disaster. He's wanted for piracy, supporting armed insurgents, conspiracy to commit treason, theft of military equipment, and theft of classified military information." The other Forenian sailors stiffen up, and their hands move to pistols on their belts. "He's going to have to come with us... or we won't be allowed to let you leave." "And we have a lot of cannons," adds another sailor.
What will you do?
Author
Topic: Exodus from Vlanlados (Read 27140 times)