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Ship   : Lantashi Dance
Log    : 004
Date   : 2496-10-20-10
Status : He Broke the Bloody Ship!

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/* TRANSMISSION START */
Sarah West's Report:

#### Help!

This is Sarah West. I am making this report with the
permission of Captain Lantashi, though she didn't tell me
what I had to say. She basically said, "You fixed it.
Have fun!"

I am an engineer on the exploration vessel Lantashi Dance.
The ship is limping around in an unexplored section of
space. The crew seems... unstable, having spent way too
much time in statis. There is some strange entity on board
that has now endangered all our lives!

And we now have a moron who is put in charge of landing
teams. More on that below.

#### New Landing Team Lead

Thane Biomax, yes that's his real name... he's cute. Very
cute. From southern Missouri, he is tall, well over 2
meters, and strong as an ox, even after having spent
eternity in stasis!

But he shouldn't be put in charge of anything! He
definitely should never touch anything electrical,
mechanical, edible, or, well... he should just not do
anything at all!

#### What Happened

Mr. Biomax cannot wire his way out of a paper-bag! What
was he *thinking*?? He nearly killed us all with his
bright idea of how to restore full power to the ship! "Oh,
all I have to do is create a feedback loop in the fusion
reactor, disable a few outdated safety protocols, power
the ship, and feed the excess energy out into space!"

I told him no! Yonas told him no! Bearth told him no! Even
Captain Lantashi got out of her tree in The Garden and
said it was a bad idea. Everyone told him no! 

But he claimed he got the idea from a sentient life-form
that materialized to him, just *HIM* mind you, and gave
him the schematics. And this... *thing*... appeared to
him in the form of a cute blonde girl, and says she is a
higher life form. It said its name was Rachel, which just
happened to be the name of one of his college sweethearts.

I'll "higher life-form" *her* if I ever get my hands on
her. I tell you that.

What Mr. Bio-NoBrain managed to do is fry the life-support
systems, completely knocked out the fusion drive, sent our
AI into pyscho-mode, brought down navigation, and blew a
huge hole in the back of our ship. Oh, and knocked out the
QEC system for *months*.

#### Repairs

We lost two crewmen from the blast. And it took the entire
engineering staff three days, *THREE DAYS*, to get life
support back online! We nearly all froze and sufficated to
death while bringing life-support back online. Most of the
garden perished, putting everyone on emergency rations for
over a month until it recovered. And the fusion reactor is
now being held together with duct tape and super-glue.

(No, really, duct tape is involved)

#### Back on Course

The ship wandered off course, due to the strong solar
winds in the nebula. It would not have been good for us
to try to enter orbit anyways, or even the Kelev 01-072
system, when we couldn't "see" anything.

Finally, the hull-breach is repaired the best it is going
to be. I have half the ship systems wired up to a pair of
Amigas. We passed 072, and had to slow down and circle
back to it, all the while hoping our repairs held.

#### Preparing to Land

We've now entered orbit around 01-072.4, and the sensors,
such as they are, seem to indicate plant-life similar to
what is now growing in the garden. The planets in the area
must be affected by the radiation of the nebula.

Our ship is equipped with a small shuttle to land on
planets. The ship itself supposedly can as well, but until
we know exactly what is down there, that might be
imprudent.

And the person being put in charge of the landing team?
Thane Biomax. Yonas wanted to throw him in the brig, but
we don't have a brig. 

Yonas was dragging Biomax to the airlock for an early ship
departure, but two things prevented that. First, Chief
Security Officer Dothmer wanted to go with Thane, out the
airlock, without a suit! What is up with that Elephant
Man? I would have been happy to see them both spaced, but
the Captain was having none of it.

Captain Lantashi said that Thane showed "initiative"...
that was her word. She said he had the qualities of a
"leader". Uh huh.

And I have been asked to go down to the planet surface
with the team as well! "Keep the shuttle running, Sarah,"
Yonas said to me. "And keep an eye on wonder-boy."

My only consolation is that he is going down on the planet
with a red shirt. That should stand out, and if there are
any monsters down there, maybe they'll go after him first.

~Sarah West, Engineer

/* TRANSMISSION END */

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Wiki System

Missouri - Independent country in the middle of the north
American continent. Used to be part of something called the
"United States". Main exports - grains such as corn, and
propusion systems for ship.

Red Shirt - Rumor has it, from the 20th century, that red
shirts are dangerous to wear on planet surfaces. But for
some strange reason they were popular in the 20th-century,
and causes a lot of people to die while exploring outer
space.

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