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⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-04)
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I've copied the beginnings of a story I am working on titled "Oh Bloody Hell!!" into the writing section of this capsule. Link in the section at the end of this log.
OBH is a sci-fi story based on an Alternity campaign I am running.
This is just the beginning of Chapter 1. I have a lot more written, but I want to proof-read it before I upload it. I will upload parts of the story to the gemlog as I write it. To see it all put together, see the writing section of the capsule.
Carei opened her eyes. Her entire body ached, and her head was pounding.
No answer. Carei's eyes slowly focused on the room about her. It was filled with an artificial light, but the materials of the walls were all wrong. She also was not lying in her bunk, but in a soft bed. It would have been comfortable, if she didn't hurt so much.
"Where am I?" she asked out loud. No answer. If she had been aboard her ship, Der Vesh, the AI would have replied. But... nothing.
Carei slowly, painfully, pushed herself up into a sitting position. It wasn't easy. This was a soft bed, and her body had sunk into it. The pillows were also very soft.
"Dim the lights," Carei commanded the room. Again, no reaction. This place was either low-tech, or the AI would not respond to her. Was she a prisoner? No, if she was, her captors would have her sleeping on a cot, or on the floor, not in a soft bed.
Now in a sitting position, she took in her surroundings more fully. It was a large room, at least compared to what she was used to on a starship. It was a full fifteen by ten feet. The bed was against a wall of gray... stone? Not a metal, but stone. The port-hole like window was of modern material though. Outside of it the stars filled the sky. The stars were unknown to her though. Where had the ship traveled to?
Looking down through the window, she saw a barren, rocky surface. Carei was no longer aboard a ship, but on a planet, or moon, or asteroid. She saw a small rocky shape in the sky, either a moon, or a planet. She didn't pretend to know which was which.
The rest of the room contained a desk with a very old-fashioned terminal on it, with communication wires running into the wall. There was a wooden dresser, and a trunk at the end of the bed. Above the dresser appeared to be a ... mirror, and not an electronic one. There were two doors, one by the dresser, and the other on a wall opposite the window. All the walls were made of the strange stone. Carei found herself worrying that the stone would not hold in the atmosphere, though she couldn't be certain that the rocky landscape outside didn't have breathable air.
Beside the bed was a small, old-fashioned wooden table. On it was a thermos whose lid doubled as a cup. By the thermos was a data-pad. An indicator light was blinking in the top-left corner.
"So," she said aloud, finding her voice strange echoing off the stone walls, "at least I have something from civilization."
She reached over to grab the data-pad, letting the blanket fall away from her body. She paused in her action. She wasn't dressed, at all, except for wrappings on her right arm, and around her lower torso. The flesh that showed, her chest, shoulders, and left arm, were mottled with bruises and whelps. She looked as bad as she felt.
"It must have been one hell of a fight I was in," Carei said to herself.
She pulled the sheets off, and verified that her legs and thighs were also horribly bruised. But she was in one piece. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, leaned over, and picked up the data-pad.
As she lifted it, the light blinked rapidly. A beam of light scanned her face, and the data-pad unlocked.
The screen came to life, and Captain Densen's mottled face came onto the screen.
"Hi Carei. If you are seeing this, it means you woke up," he said in his raspy voice. "You were pretty beat up. We all were. Our latest salvage was a trap. Damned union ship showed up when your salvage crew was aboard. The wrecked ship was rigged to blow when the union frigate engaged us. We lost the salvage crew, all but you. You were near death as we picked you up.
"We fought off the damned frigate, but took plenty of damage. Two thirds of the crew gone, including our medical staff. I dropped you off at a place known as The Tavern. It welcomes all types, even our kind. I wouldn't take you anywhere where the law would pick you up.
"I couldn't wait until you healed. But I gave the Tavern plenty of money to take care of you. And threatened them mightily to dissuade them from taking your possessions. It's all there, under the bed, sealed with a retina scan.
"I will pick you up when I can, if you are still there. We're off to repair the Der Vesh, or to acquire a replacement. Good luck."
The video cut off, and she was shown her personal interface to the pad. She looked at the date, shown in the Terran calendar.
-2582.08.25
Email: lantashi [at] protonmail [dot] com