FIREFLY RPG - Episode 0 - Prologue

Christopher was rudely thrown off the bed when the ship jolted, giving the floor a big fat hello.

"Argh! What the bloody damn hell was that?!", he yelled while rising from the floor holding his nose.

Shaftoe was also jolted out of bed. He jumps up, pulls on pants, and grabs his blade before rushing out of his quarters. He hits the comm out in the hallway.
"Capt. What going on?"

Harmony- everything appears to be okay, the hull isn't breached. But the engine has now stopped dead, but there was a decelerating burst from the thrusters before it went offline; Gan Ying is now only moving on what limited momentum is left. The alarms are indicating damage to the engine.

Shaftoe- Kelly answers right away. "Hell if I know, boyo. Get everyone up to the mess, and I mean everyone."

He then messages Harmony. "Give me the news, Harm."

"Done"
I'll run down the hall banging on all the doors.

"Mess hall NOW!"

To specify for Harmony, who messaged me- EVERYTHING is offline. Reaction thrusters, pulse drive, inertial drive... they have all been shut down as if you had done it from the cockpit. Except they are now unresponsive to anything you do. The reaction thrusters fired off briefly before the shut down and so Gan Ying has slowed to a nearly 'dead in the water' pace.

Phillip pops out of a door, holding his head. "What happened?" he asks you, Shaftoe.

"...Captain?" Harmony sounds scared, "You... you should come up here. We're in trouble. Serious, serious trouble."

Christopher stumbles out of his room to hear the call to mess.

"Glad to see I'm not the only one who felt that", he mumbled to himself as he walked to the mess hall.

Vash would try to regain balance, getting up and stretching his muscles a little after the fall.

"Not a good first flight for the newcomers, eh?"

As Shaftoe rushing past he says to Phillip.
"We're about to find out."

"I'll be right up," Kelly says into the comm. "Alan'll be with me, we'll get this sorted out..."

Everyone is meeting up in the mess at this point, if they were not there already. The life support and power are still functioning, but everyone is definitely confused.

"Any ideas?" Phillip asks. "That was quite a jolt."

When the Captain and Alan arrive, Harmony has already brought up the full diagnostic program as it runs, showing as much detail as she can about what happened. "We've lost... everything that moves the ship, sir. Pulse drive, inertial drive, reaction thrusters, all offline and unresponsive, and it looks like we've lost all our forward momentum due to an emergency plasma vent or something..."

Harmony sighs, still sounding and looking rather frightened, and looks at the flashing lights on the display, warning her of all the malfunctioning systems. "Sir, we're dead in the water, barely drifting forward... and because we were on an arc around the Richtofen, we're heading into deep space at a snail's pace..."

She glances up at the diagnostic screen as it runs through system after system, checking for more information. "...We'll know more once this finishes, or if we get to the engine rooms..."

Kenneth has headed back to the mess, checking everyone out there for anything worse than minor bruises and cuts.

"Not a clue," Nadra replies to Phillip while gracefully taking a seat. "Not that I know anything about ships anyway."

After a quick look at the diagnostics Alan says, "I'll check the engines."

Knowing Harmony has more then enough mechanical knowledge to handle things in the cockpit he'll break into a run towards the engine room.

"Don't worry, Captain..." Harmony says, trying and failing to sound confident and reassuring, "we'll fix this...". She looks back at the flashing lights, and starts examining the diagnostic data that is coming in. "...at least we still have communications and navigation, so we can call for help and set up a distress beacon..."

Harmony also restores atmo to the engine rooms, and unseals the bulkhead doors, before turning the pilot's chair away from the Captain and back toward the display. "Okay..." she says into the headset, intercomming Alan in the engine room. "What's it look like in there? Is she still with us, or are we on battery power? Let me know what I can do to help... I'll feed you diagnostic info as it comes in."

"I'll come with, wait a sec for me," Kelly says to you, Alan, then ducks back into the cockpit area. "Harmony, keep that check going, I wanna have a look-see at what's going on under my ship's hood, so to speak. This... doesn't feel right. What qualifies as an emergency for plasma venting, hmm? Check it for me, I'll be right back. Don't let anyone in here."

He starts to go, then looks back at you.

"Got a gun on you?"

-

"I don't like this," Phillip says. "Doc, I think I pulled something when we stopped. Can you take a look-see?"

"Could be caused by the reactor building up too much pressure, if a high-powered component stopped drawing plasma. It would vent the excess plasma out the reaction thrusters to keep the fusion drive from exploding." She says, before the Captain leaves. When he ducks back in, she spins back around in her chair, startled.

"...What? Uh, no..." Harmony responds, confused. "They're all locked up in the Armory. You've got the key." She adds. Then, she goes wide-eyed as realization dawns. "You don't think one of the passengers did this...?" Once he leaves, she'll close the door and seal the maglock before resuming monitoring the diagnostics. Unless she's ordered to go get a gun...

"Sure, just hold still. What part hurts specifically?" Kenneth will obligingly look Phillip over.

I will be hanging out in the mess hall keeping an eye on everyone making sure everything is going ok.

Alan will silently nod and wait outside the cockpit until Kelly comes back.