One Plus Three Is Five

Posted on Tue Apr 12th, 2022 @ 8:04pm by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Lieutenant Darru & Ensign Duncan McManus & Crewman Timothy Richardson & Commander William Gerhard & Lieutenant JG Ethal Reade & Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos & Kyle Cranston

Mission: Mission 6 - Memory
Location: ShuttlePod Bay
Timeline: Day 293 - 18:00
1488 words - 3 OF Standard Post Measure

^Copy that Atlantis, commencing final approach^ Liang Van guided the ShuttlePod in under the stern of the ship, cut the engine and switched to thrusters for the final sequence. Bringing the craft to a complete stop, he leant forward and peered up through the canopy for a final visual check the bay doors were open, satisfied they were he gently elevated the shuttle into the docking piston. There was the familiar clunk and thud as the clamps engaged and they were drawn up into the ship.

"Thank you for flying Atlantis Airways, please remain seated and leave your luggage in the overhead bins, until we have reached the terminal" he joked. His headache had cleared and they had all enjoyed the short flight back listening to Smith bantering back and forth with everyone. This guy really was good at his job, they could not have picked a better Morale Officer

The bay door closed underneath the ShuttlePod there was a brief wait while it sealed and the compartment pressurized then he unlocked the reach hatch and the boarding ladder extended down.

John looked over the bay as they reached the same pressure as the rest of the ship and his exit appeared. “Good flying.” He said looking over everything. “Almost text book.” He teased slapping a hand onto the man’s shoulder.

"I'll be happy to get out of this EV suit. I've been needing to use the bathroom for over an hour," William said as he grabbed his helmet and followed the rest of the away team up and out of the shuttle pod. He made his way over to the weapons locker on the opposite wall from the exit hatch and entered his personal code. Opening the locker, he grabbed his holstered phase pistol, pulled the charge cell out, and placed both pistol and holster in their designated spots. After doing this, he plugged the charge pack into it's receptacle and closed the locker. Securing it, he turned to find John standing close. "You know some would call that spying," he said with an upraised brow.

"I believe I call it waiting to hang out with you." The man responded with a grin and a shrug. It was just a different viewpoint. "Shall we get out of these?" He wondered looking around to see what everyone else was doing.

William made his way over to the launchbay exit before looking back at John, "Well I don't know about you, but I could use a good shower when I get out of this suit." He watched the science team start lugging all the collected samples out of the pod. He whispered to John as they watched, "Unless you want to stick around and get drafted into the moving team."

“You guys all need to be medically checked coming back onboard.” A science crewman told them as she passed to the moving party.

“Do we really?” John asked.

Once they had landed Ethal had started to lead the rest of the science team and help them unload the samples. She was so focused on the task at hand she had not even taken the opportunity to get out of her EV suit. This wasn’t the first time she got carried away with a task but one of her team did pull her aside to remind her that she still needed to do so. With the heads up she left quickly to get changed.

“Seems so.” John murmured seeing Ethal leave. “Shall we?” John suggested to William.

"I guess we shall," William answered before leading the way towards the decon chamber. As he stepped through the threshold, he felt the pulsing pressure behind his forehead, but he dismissed it. He figured it was just readjusting to the pressure of the ship.

Liang Van completed his shutdown checklist. He would have to file a report on clipping that outcrop, then there have to be an inspection of the hull and possible repairs, then he would probably get a notation on his previously flawless flight record. He was not very happy about that. He finished the post-flight checklist and updated the flight log. He opened the file that he had created before leaving, he frowned looking at the manifest. He was there as one pilot, with three passengers Lieutenants Gerhard, Darru and Reade; one and three, total four. But there was five of them, how had he missed Ensign Smith?!

He frowned, now he thought of it, Smith had not been at the briefing earlier when they met in the Science department to discuss the mission to the asteroid. Oh that was right, Smith came on at the last minute, just before they left. Gerhard or one of the others had let him come along.

Damn, he was not having a good day, he had screwed up the trim settings and forgot to add Smith to the flight log before they left. He'd get more than a notation on his file if Leyton found out!

He could fix the log now at least, he tapped into the file to add Smith to the passenger list but could not find him in the database.

"What the...?" he muttered to himself.

He was not under S for Smith, nor J for John, not even under M for Morale Officer. He looked over his shoulder, he was going to ask Smith where he was listed, but they had all left. He was going to call up the ladder, but then for some reason it did seem that important. He left the log as it was, four or five, they had gone out and come back with the same number. It would be fine. He shut off the power, did one last check of the cabin, unstrapped, grabbed his helmet and headed back toward the ladder.

Up on the gantry he found the others removing their EVO suits and along with some Engineering staff who worked the shuttlepod bay. He spotted De Vos, they did damage control. he would ask them to check over the hull with him.

As the shuttle had come in they had spotted that it had hit something. They wondered what could've been out there to cause that. It was just a dead hunk of rock and most of the liftoff and landing was automated, as long as someone put in the right calculations. They hoped it was damage that was easily repaired, Leyton really didn't like damage to the shuttles. As the group exited the shuttle and headed out of the shuttlebay for decontamination Kiyara felt a pressure on their eyeballs and a ringing in their head. "I should drink more water." They reminded themselves of their bad habits of hydration.

“What did you do?” Richardson asked over the reminder of water. He often felt the same especially with the headache he had brewing but the shuttle was a bigger concern to him there and then. “She’s only just come back into service. Poor Odysseus.” He added in an almost painful tone as he thought on the work that had gone into getting Odysseus back online.

"Not really sure, we were taking off and she just crabbed to port" Laing Van held his hands open and shrugged. He was still mystified by the event.

Without taking his EVO suit off he clambered over the rail and climbed down to the lower level, then dropped down to inspect the hull.

Cranston entered and almost immediately noticed the gouged plating by the landing strut and grinned. "Leyton is going to blow a gasket," he chuckled. Normally he would be in the galley, preparing a meal but when he was able, he would help out engineering.

"It's not that bad, just a small dent and a bit of paint got scuffed off" Liang Van called up, running his hand over it, relieved it was only a minor ding.

"I'm happy to help fix it, just let me know what you need me to do" it was the least he could offer after the Engineering crew had worked hard on getting the shuttle flight ready again.

"Maybe we can get it fixed before she finds out? It seems relatively superficial." Kiyara looked over at the away team, a strange sensation of deja vu came over them. "They should really stop planning these expeditions at the end of shifts."

“I agree. Always us... Who is that?” Timothy started as he saw John in the distance taking off the helmet but his question was lost as he returned his attention to the shuttle issue.

Narrowing his eyes at the strange suit, Cranston began to approach before it dawned on him that the suit belonged to Smith.

“It’s John. Oh, that bloody suit. Scares me every time. I wish he had not brought it back from that ship.” Timothy shook his head and tutted as he set about to fix the pod.