Charles Lindsey

Geez cuz. I am sorry that mail didnt get to you. And my own ISP probs prevented me from seeing this thread as refreshed. I Can resend if it's not too late. I have outliined a couple in my most recent post. I.E. access to ships systems via Ly6nx's naavitron trick. The navitron trick works in game and conceivably you could access any other system since it was the same menu. I gave Neena couple of options. If they don''t work fine if they do work fine. Charles/Chavik/McKendrick

"Ok, Doc, this has been fun but it's time to see if we can get one of these birds to fly," said McKendrick as he laid the cards down. "Come on, maybe you can give me a hand, you too Rod." McKendrick grabbe his trusty tool kit and entered shuttle 4 . The good doctor and Rod followed him. "All right, lets see what damage we can do. We know the ship won't lift without power to launch control. I tried that before. But the ship has power. That's good, it's just the launch control computer that needs power to transmit the launch codes. So let's see if we can dig down in the system and get some launch codes. " McKendrick began tapping out commands on the shuttles interface but had no luck accessing launch codes. "Whoa! pretty girl! Look at this doc. Look familiar?" "Why yes it does. That is the ships roster. We often use it in Medibay to scan the current assignments for the ships crew. From there you can get to the commlink, the logistixs, basically any system in the ship but the medibay computer is locked out." "This ain't Medibay Doc." McKendrick grinned. Once again the atv's locked on a target but McKendrick was too excited to notice until he heard his name called. "What the?? Come on Doc. Let's see who we got for company." McKendrick, with his rifle ready, lead the doctor around the corner of an ATV to find Neena Polovoski and three other crewmembers standing there. He ordered the drones to stand down their weapons and immediately a medic began placing small medkits around the room. "Miss Polovoski?" "Yes?" raising an eyebrow at the feminine attachment to her name. She was used to being called "Mister". "There is something I need to show you in shuttle 4. If you would follow me please ma'am." Again the raised eyebrow as she followed him. This was not the scared FE she had encountered earlier. He was more confident yet even more polite. As she entered the cokpit of the shuttle he simply began pointing to the control console. "How did you get into that system?" she demanded. "I simply activated the ship's roster and all the other options were there." "Mother has locked down access to that system for quite a while now. I demand to know how you got in that sytem." she said heatedly. "Ma'am" said McKendrick as gently as he could. "This ain't Mother. It's a subset. All shuttles have it. It's basically a duplicate of Mother but downgraded for shuttles. Or so I thought till I accessed this system. It seems the engineers forgot to wipe that link. " "So it seems Mr. McKendrick. Gaurd the left flank of the shuttle bay with Jayce Allen and let me see what I can do with this. " "Yes ma'am and umm, there is a commchannel open but I can't raise anyone. It may be the ships shielding, no one is in a position to receive comms, or they are not turned on." said McKendrick as he left the shuttle. {RP} OFF Credit to Lynx for the link to the main computer. Remember his "Navitron from Shuttle" thread in TIps forum? Real life hit me too. I learned a valuable lesson also. Never give your parents a computer late on a monday night. Charles/Chavik/McKendrick

I had mailed you with some ideas I had. I was waiting your approval or denial. Hope the mail didn't get lost in the shuffle. Hope that relapse doesn't keep you down for too long. I can at least post on Neena's arrival and show her my findings. They have only been vague rumblings up till now. Up to you what to do with them. Will start asap. To steal something from Pan, posting at 8:00 P.M. Central; U.S. time. Which means it will be at least 18 hours before anyone sees anything. {G} Gotta sleep sometime. Charles/Chavik/McKendrick

I thought Benni was damn near captured. would love to have you in the shuttle bay with us. But I think you messed yourself up. Then again from what I have seen you still have a good bit of power. {G} Time will tell. {G} Charles/Chavik

"Go fish," said Michael Mckendrick to the CMO. "Tell me doc, What's your name?" "Hang on Doc, something is up. Let me check it out. I'll be right back." McKendrick left his game of cards with the Doctor to investigate a strange feeling he had. Sure enough, a ship to ship commlink was open. The link was open to a couple of IC's. "Hello, hello, hello? Is anybody out there? Can anybody hear me?" McKendrick hoped that would suffice. He rejoined his game with the doc. "You got any 8's?" "Go fish." said the Doc. {RP } OFF [snicker] Charles/Chavik

Nope, get better first. Keyboards tend not to like liquid, no matter the source.

Where ya been Blades? I'm ready for my fix. Anything else you'd like to see set up on my end? Charles

Countdown T ÔÇô 19 hours 40 minutes The last three times the ATV's had targeted had been false alarms. It was simply the drones going back and forth across the shuttle bay. He couldn't afford to get complacent though. The next time could be the real thing. He felt like death warmed over. The only thing keeping him going was the circumstances. The ship had begun moving a while back. Something was up. when would the Lt. Commander arrive? McKendrick wiped his forehead with his arm. It wiped the sweat out of his eyes but also served to smear the grease from the ATV driveshaft around. He swayed slightly and caught his balance. He transferred the laser rifle to his other hand and propped up against a shuttle. I need another shower he thought. I must look quite the sight. Hot, sweaty, sirty, and tired. Just let someone upset me now. Countdown T ÔÇô 19 hours 20 minutes

Mission + 23 days 14 hours 4 minutes McKendrick was hot, very hot and very sweaty. It had been over three hours since he had seen Mister Polovoski. McKendrick wondered where she could be and why Rod was taking so long finding her. He had stayed busy though. Not only had he pulled the ATV's and the drones out he had plaed them to their maximum benefit. He hoped at least. The drones were scattered in a lazy semicircle around the entrance of the internal bay doors. Mainly horizontal but skewed just enough to gove maximum coverage. The ATV's were behind the drones in another semicircle. Also seemingly scattered about but the lasers were pointed at the entrance. At least I hope they look scattered about, thought Mckendrick. Sorry goons. He was trying to kill me. That had taken over an hour. The drones had had to be pushed into position. Upon offloading they had immediately gone to their docking stalls. Automatics *******s, thought McKendrick. In or out. No between. He had maged to decouple the drive shaft on all of them and got the droids to push them into place. He had helped. He had to. The drones were a match even for the cumulative power of the droids. His input had been just enough. He had unzipped the top half of his jump suit to the waist. He was about to toss the whole thing when propriety got the best of him. Best not leave the world in almost the same thing you came in with. He laughed long and hard at that. Even the droids who had been carrying out his instructions paused in their labors to assimilate this behaviour. McKendrick just laughed harder and entered shuttle 4. Mission plus 23 days 18 hours 53 minutes (Sick time starts) Query, search, query. Neena Polovoski. Neena Polovoski? The droid displayed on his screen as a crewmember walked by. The crewmember, not knowing anything of droids, simply walked past. Query, search, query. Neena Polovoski. Neena Polovoski? Another crew member walked straight past the droid. If the droid could have been upset it would have been. It had gotten no help from anyone it encountered. After the last quizzical look from a crewmember the droid spotted a data terminal. It immediatey went over to it and processed the same command. An image of perscan, albeit in binary , appeared. Neena Polovoski was on the bridge. Rod began his journey. When at the bridge Rod queried a few more individuals but they were false leads as well, another data terminal at the bridge showed that Neena Polovsky was in Medibay. The droid began the journey from deck 1 bridge to deck 2 Medibay. When at Medibay Rod checked another terminal. She was still there. He went over to the door but it refused to automatically open. He had been given a set of orders to carry out. Completion of those orders depended on delivering a message. To deliver the message Medibay must be entered. Medibay has one entrance. The droids computer processed that information in a split second and did the only thing it could do. Attempt entry. The door held fast against his first and second attempts and he was just about to try other measures when it opened. The droid entered and began querying Neena Polovoski. No one seemed to understand so he roes to his full height and accessed the Medibay computer and displayed the message again and all proceeding events. The Biologicals talked a bit then left. Without clear instructions Rod fell into to analytical mode. He went over the conversation and decided that the shuttle bay was the next set of orders. He exited the Medibay and began the trip. Mission + 23 days 19 hours 30 minutes Mckendrick was dancing. Not in the literal sense of the word but he was dancing. He had the droids in concert. It was beautiful. They had positioned the drones and the ATV's. Then they had begun working on the missiles. They had pulled some portable racks over and placed the missiles on them. McKendrick had opened the controls panels and defeated the safeties the the help of the droids.Then they had wired the launch command into the shuttle's weapons control. That had been a stroke of luck, discovering that the shuttles used the same board as the IC's. Galcom trying to save a penny he thought as he grinned. He'd had to link it to tractor beam control but inside the ship the tractor beam would be useless anyway. Man it's hot in here. And I'm getting hungry too. I shoulda grabbed something from the galley on my way down here. Man it's hot. I feel like I got the flu. Can't be. I got immunized before this last tour of duty. But it sure is hot. "Ok guys, R-1 thru R-4 follow me. Rod!" McKendrick said as the droid entered the shuttle bay. "You too, follow me." Damn I'm dizzy. The droids that he had brought onto the Chikuma via his shuttle responded. They all had R0D model numbers. Only the serial numbers were different. With only seven left McKendrick had been tempted to name them after the dwarves but he couldn't remember their names. "This is the directional control. This is throttle, and this is the laser. This one over here is the APM missile. Use that only as a last resort. I need you guys to target anything moving but do not fire unless I give the command. I'm expecting some friends." R-1 stayed in ATV 4 and the other drones went to their respective machines. McKendrick bent over and had the dry heaves. Damn I'm dizzy. Just let those sorry goons come mess with me now. Good thing I found those lasers in SC-1. McKendrick was in SC-4 looking for a medpak when he heard the ATV's begin moving as if they were targeting something. RP OFF (hope someone brought the med kit antidote. [This message has been edited by Charles Lindsey (edited 10-07-1999).]

There you go Blades. For what it's worth. HOpe I didn't ruin you plans. But McKendrick is one scared FE right now. LOL. Plus it just sort of spilled out. didn't mean for it to be that long. Charles [This message has been edited by Charles Lindsey (edited 10-04-1999).]

uncoventional time stamp: After Neena left McKendrick's quarters up till? Ya'll decide. I don't know how long it took me to do this stuff. I'm thinking Neena's meeting with the CMO is done and Neena is proceeding with other stuff. I'm concurrent. Just when is my prob. After his meeting with Neena Polovoski Mckendrick didn't know what to do. He looked at his would be killer and saluted him. He turned and knelt down next to Rod. "Look's like you and I are the only ones I can trust in this. Why had she told him to put the info on the datapad? Wasn't it enough that it was on the droids memory banks as well as the flight recorder. Well, nothing like triple redundancy. So I'll go one better. He hooked up an extra set of cables to the droid. "Upload to the datapad and into mother's databanks. Flag it for Commander Stone. Maybe he will see it in time." When the upload was done he said, " Now let's get out of here before the entire ship comes looking for us. They made their way around the corner to the turboshaft without incident. They had to duck into cargo bay 1 to avoid some of the goons. There they were. The two droids he had mangled along with ten others. Inspiration! He went around activating the droids manually along with another little enhancement. "Ok guys. the logistix computer is out as is communications. Check for yourselves. We need the shuttle bay repaired ASAP though. Get down there and await further orders from me." The droids did some internal checks and satisfied that what McKendrick had told them was true they trundled off down the service tubes. The last two droids he had to rummage around for some more enery cells. When he had them he reconnected them as well. "You two come with me. You to Rod." They loaded up on tools and extra energy cells and made their way to the front of the ship. Goons were all around weapoons bay 2. McKendrick just had time to duck as they looked his way. They went across the ship to weapons bay 1. This one was unguarded. McKendrick and the droids slipped inside. There they were. The missiles. He didn't know what he was planning but he damn sure wanted the tools for the job. The two Galcom droids were told to grab an ATA Warrior while Rod was instructed to get the ATS Hyperdyne. McKendrick instructed the two Galcom droids to carry the weapons to IC bay 1 for loadout and for Rod to follow them. As the droids left down the service tube McKendrick suddenly felt lonely. He steeled his nerves and hopped the first turboshaft to deck three where he met with the droids. It was a long walk down the aft corridor as he went to meet his companions. He found them waiting by IC 1 and motioned for them to follow. It was another long walk to the turbo shaft that would take them to the subdeck where the shuttle launch bay was. They had made it into the shuttle launch bay without incident. McKendrick almost collapsed with relief but he knew he had more work to do. Then he heard the APB put out on him. For what!?! He wanted to scream. Well he had known he wasn't playing a nice game of hide and seek but hadn't expected the whole ship to join in. He had his droids. Perhaps he had a fighting chance. And the missiles would blow a hole inside of the BC big enough for a P21 Vandal to fly through. That was only if he could get them to dumb fire. Oh well. Time for a last stand. He ran to the other shuttles and unloaded the ATV's. They had APM missiles as well as a laser. Will be good in a fight. Too bad I can't control more than one, he thought. The Galcom droids had safeties built in, perhaps Rod could be persuaded. Rod! there are seven other like him. McKendrick ran over to Shuttle 4 and and checked them . They were still there. He motioned to the Galcom droids that were carrying the energy cells and they came over. He took the energy cells from them and installed them into the other droids. They came to life one by one and began looking around. "Rod, brief them." Rod went over to the first droid and uploaded the data. That droid signalled receipt of data and went to another as Rod did the same. Soon all the droids were updated as to the current situation. Once the new droids were updated McKendrick motioned to Rod. "Find Neena Polovoski and tell her," McKendrick searched for a metaphor that would convey the situation. "Tell her the eagle has landed, the sky is falling , and chicken little has built a little nest." The droid beeped in query but McKendrick just said," Just do it, and relay any subsequent orders form her." The droid beeped affirmative and trundled off. McKendrick watched his scout leave the shuttle bay. One less in his army. Now to make the bay look like everything is operating normally. McKendrick went to the other shuttles and began unloading the drones as well. RP OFF Here I am with my little army. {Grin} Good or bad Blades? Tell me and I can fix. [This message has been edited by Charles Lindsey (edited 10-05-1999).]

I'd like to second the motion of Thomas Seimens for Orion Fleet Commander. I'd also like to add two other commanders to the list. Blades and Lynx. Both active and vocal as is Thomas. Choices, choices. ------------------ Commander Chavik ICV Phoenix "We Shall Arise From The Ashes" Official BC3K Tester

Speak of the devil and he appears. Sheesh Gallion, I just mailed ya asking how ya been. Havent' seen ya in awhile and now you're catching a plan. {G} You ought to be able to jump right back in (my flimsy excuse for staying on topic)and I'm looking forward to it. Blades is killing me though. I didn't mean to be a focal point of the plot. (for now, and don't worry Blades, I love it . It's making me think.) Welcome back, jump right in this mess, and good to hear from you. Charles "The wicked one"

I don't like the time indexes because I'm not good at them. Trying to decide when I did something and how long it took is a real pain. I hope everyone understands I'm fitting in concurrently and not two weeks ago. [grin] Now that it's calmed down I can begin again. There was a big jump a while back that confused me. Charles

Next! Phew, three of those things in four days about has me wore out. Hope it's up to snuff. But I'm whereever I need to be. Use me as you will Blades. Charles/Chavik

"Sorry, gotta run, but thanks," said McKendrick as he left Medibay. His head felt better than it had in a couple of days and he wanted to make the best of it. He actually remembered the trip to the transport along with watching it on the droid's video. Maybe he has more, McKendrick thought. I'll have to check that out. He ran to his room with the droid following along behind. Along the way he saw several goons giving him the eye. Not good, he thought. Feeling dirty he let the shower blast him for a minute and put on a change of clothes. The feeling of freshness was utopia. It was as if all his troubles had been washed away. But they were creeping up on him quickly. He knew they were only rinsed off. With his hair still wet he left his room. "Come on you," he said to the droid. He went to the only place he felt halfway safe. Shuttle 4. The de-energized drones were still there as were the tools he had used on "his" droid. "Ok, guy, you have got to have a designation. Saying hey you all the time just don't cut it. Display serial number. " R0D1M473, came up on the droid's screen. "R zero D huh? R O D? Rod? It'll have to do. It's hoky I know but from now on I'll call you Rod ok? Now Rod, I assume you have a log file on recent events?" The droid beeped in the affirmative. "Ok, back up till when we arrived back on this ship and play forward." The droid beeped again and went silent. Then on it's small display screen an iage appeared. It was the missile and the men gahered around it. The view shook slightly and an older man stood oup and said," Ok, we've arrived. Everyone out. Jones, get those droiids to unload this thing. Smith, you take care of the pilot. " The view began moving as the droids moved the missile out of the shuttle and onto a transport cart. "Ok, Jones, get 'em back in the shuttle and wipe them." McKendrick watched as the view once again moved but this time back to the shuttle. The droids parked themselves around the perimeter of the bay and waited while Jones began the reset procedure. Droid after droid shut down and went lifeless. Jones came straight towards his field of view and then disappeared to the left. Just then a commotion started in the bay and Jones ran out leaving at least Rod and presumably the other droid he had seen still active. "Well, well, what have we here?" said a voice from behind McKendrick. He arose and turned to face Smith. The same man who had put that helmet on him . "Uh, nothing. Just doing post flight checks." "Flight? What flight?" Smith asked as he delivered a jab at McKendrick. It connected with his jaw and sent him reeling. "There wasn't wasn't any flight. We took care of that. You did look like you knew too much," said Smith as he delivered a right cross. "That's enough of that cuz. I'll report you to Commander Stone. He'll run this show right. No flight? What's that big missile I saw?" "Oh, I don't think there will be any reporting. Stone doesn't know near what he thinks he does," Smith said as he delivered a kick to McKendrick's gut. " That old bag of wind wouldn't know his arse from ahole in the ground if we shoved his head in it. That missile is for a big surprise, not even Stone knows. Everyone will get a kick out of it. " "How dare you? Stone runs this show and you know it. Now report yourself. " Smith just grinned and delivered a roundhouse kick that caught his shoulder, numbing it. "No, I think you'll be reporting to Stone from the morgue. Especially after Mallone tells him we found another traitor who sympathized with that one from the fighter that was brought in." A smoldering rage began to boil in McKendricks soul. These goons had taken over the ship and were now trying o kill him. He fought back and actually drew blood on Smith until he did something that had him flat on his back. "You got some spunk, you might have made it through the first week of boot camp. I almost don't hate you now." With that he grabed McKendricks neck with both hands and began sqeezing the life out of him. Mckendrick was losing air. Smith had him pinned and he had no leverage. "You wanna know where that missile is going? well seeing as how you won't be telling anyone I'll tell you." "Rod, the cutter," he managed to choke out at the same time. Finally given a command the droid whirred to life and went over to the box of tools McKendrick had left there previously. It scanned the box for a split second before recognizing the laser cutter. The droid picked it up and rolled over to McKendrick, handing the cutter to him. Smith looked up, "I should have made sure I de-activated you. Let me do that now and I'll finish this wuss later," said Smith as one hand left McKendricks throat to punch in the shutdown code. Several things happened simultaneously. The droid backed away from Smith. Smith continued to reach for the droid and overbalanced himself. McKendrick's throat being free he gasped for air and activated the cutter. As Smith overbalanced McKendrick plunged it into his chest. Smith looked surprised. He turned back to McKendrick with an obvious question on his face. McKendrick just shrugged as Smith fell over dead. McKendrick scuttled out from beneath the dead man and turned to the droid. "Thanks," he said. The droid just stared at him. Ok so you're not strong on personality, he thought. "Let's get out of here, c'mon."

Arghhhh Win98 startup probs have prevented me from posting. One more day. Late tomorrow evening (my time). Charles.Chavik

As McKendrick collapsed into medibay everyone turned and gawked. They weren't used to this. Usually someone collapsed in a hallway and was found by a medic or they came in under their power. A cybernetic droid (Check your manual) took quick action and left it's cubicle. It trundled over to McKendrick and picked him up. Five articulated arms balanced the load perfectly. It deposited him upon a table that was ready . It signalled for a medic but by this time three were already at his side. As was the droid McKendrick had "rescued". As they hooked up the monitoring equipment and got it stabilized one of them called,"Doctor! you should see this!" . Meanwhile Mcendrick was laying prone on the table groaning and clutching his head, the movement of the cybernetic droid having revived him somewhat. The medics had trouble securing McKendrick's arm as the little droid was in the way. "Ok you are going to have to move," the same medic said as he tried to work around it. The droid employed its expandable torso to raise full up with the medic and look him in the eye. The servoes used to accomplish this produced a quite ominous hiss accompanied by a few low octave beeps. "Uh, Doc, I got a problem over here. The droid doesn't want to move. " The CMO came over and said, "You have to get out of our way now." The droid raised the final few inches its torso allowed producing an extremely angry hiss. Not ever having this problem from her own droids the CMO said in anger, " Look, we are trying to help your friend, whatever he told you he is in dire cirdumstances right now and needs full medical attention. And we can't do that if you are in the way. Now please go wait in the corner so we can attend to your friend. You'll still be with him." The droid shook as it interpreted commands given by two different individuals. "Please," said the Doctor, "You may save his life is you allow us to work unencumbered. " The droid, not so little after the display he had put on, jerked over to the corner in obvious conflict with orders given. "Have you ever seen anything like that?" asked the medic. "Well," the Doctor replied, "Several of the old Mother computers would take on a quasi- personality after time. But I've never seen it in a droid. Not in my cybernetic droids and certainly not in a droid of this manufacture. This man must have done a lot of talking to override that programming. " "Perhaps he re-enforced it ," said the medic. "after all, a fear for ones life is a strong argument and one not any droid could ignore." "But this man has severe chemical imbalances and is not likely to be rational, Give me a dose of neuro enhancers." "But he is rational enough to convince a plain droid of his well being. I thought that was programmed in. " "Mainly it is, but that is not a Galcom droid. If it is it's one I have never seen before. Perhaps Droidan but certainly not of this ship's compliment. Those extra energy cells worry me too. No telling what that thing is rigged up to do. Best to play robopsychologist till we can ask this man what he's done to it. Ok neuro enhancers in place. Aggravated activity in the memory area of the brain. Best thing we can do is to stimulate that and give the body some rest. " McKendrick awoke in medibay strapped down to the bed. The last thing he half remembered was pushing the entrance button. To his right was the rest of medibay with several patients being attended to. To his left was the entrance and over against the wall was a small droid, cut up with extra energy cells hanging off of it. Oh yeah, he thought. "Psssst you, hey get over here. I thought I told you to stick close. " The little droid seemingly gave off a happy series of chirps, beeps, and hisses and began moving towards McKendrick. "Not so loud!," whispered McKendrick. The droid immediately stopped, hunkered down to its full y retracted positioon and began inching its way towards McKendrick. The droid finally pulled up to McKendrick and stopped. "Well, get these straps off of me. One articulated arm came up and released the strap holding his left arm. McKendrick reached over with his now free arm and released the right side. Obviously he hadn't been too bad or they would have strapped his legs as well. For the first time he noticed he could think clearly and his headache was gone. His clothes were still on. They must not have had time to do aything else but he was greatful for that small favor. He eased himself out of bed and made his way towards the door with the droid close on his heels. The medic on duty was busy helping another crewmember when he glanced over and saw that the chem imbalnce guy was walking out under his own power. "Hey you! Wait!!!!" Narrative OFF Charles "Deeper and deeper I shall go till the light shines no more." [This message has been edited by Charles Lindsey (edited 09-29-1999).]

McKendrick hit the launch button and nothing happened. So he hit it again, again nothing happened. He checked the boards. Everthing was green, it had a full charge on the nuclear reactor. Engines were online. Launch control! They must have turned the power off, he thought to himself. Well, now what? He looked around at the cockpit and got a feeling of deja v├║ . It was just like any other shuttle cockpit but the feeling persisted. Still Stephanie and others had wanted to know how his most recent trip was. The last one he remembered was going against the raiders. Sheesh I was a ten times fool for doing that, I should be dead twice over. A blinking to his right caught his attention. It was the flight data recorder in the navigation computer. He popped the access panel and pulled it out. Now to get it analyzed. He went below into the cargo bay and found several droids there. They were general purpose models designed for lifting, hauling, and data storage and retrieval! McKendrick felt a surge of excitement as he walked over to them. Most had already shut down and were waiting to be recycled. Two were still active though. Just as he got to the first one it beeped twice and powered down. Disappointed he walked over to the remaining unit. Its timer read ten minutes. He doubted the video was that short so he left the shuttle and made his way to cargo bay 1. He dug around and found some tools. He took the laser cutter and opened two droids ready for service. He pulled their energy cells and the sockets that went with them. He hurried back down to the shuttle and noticed several of the gons giving him the eye. They made him nervous and his headache returned worse than before. As he turned and activated the turboshaft he saw them talking and pointing his way. The doors shut and he went back down to the subdeck. As the turboshaft opened McKendrick hurried back to the shuttle. The droids were still there. The remaining droid had four minutes left on his timer. McKendrick cut open the casing and pulled the energy cell out exposing the plug and wires. He opened the tool case and took out a pair of wire strippers. He carefully exposed the bare wire on the energy leads. Next he cut the insulation off the spare lead. Using the microwelder he soldered the leads together and finally plugged in one of the spare energy cells. The droid surged to life. Servo's jerked and lights came on. "Stay still, I'm not done yet," said McKendrick. The droid swiveled it's squat head and aimed it's camera at him. It beeped a few times and a warning flashed on the screen in its chest. "I know what I'm doing, now stay still, or would you rather be recycled." "Standard procedure including memory reset" flashed upon the screen this time. "Not this time bucko, you got some explaining to do, now stay still." The sound of the servos relaxing sounded disturbingly like a human sigh. McKendrick looked at the droid and shook his head. He bent back down to the wires and applied the second plug in parallel with the first. McKendrick stood up feeling rather proud of himself. "There," he said, "dual capacity should be about twice the runtime and the option to replace one battery at the time. We're going to keep you going for a while. Now I need you to decode the flight recorder for me," he said as he plugged it into the data port. McKendrick watched as the screen split into two view. One was of the cockpit and the other of the shuttle's cargo bay. It was void of both the drone and the atv. His doppleganger entered the shuttle and he watched himself in the lefthand screen as he went through preflight checks. The flight was uneventful until he came upon the weirdest looking transport he had seen. He watched as he entered the docking bay and the same men who had been wandering the ship appeared along with some equipment. They directed the droids onto his shuttle and some climbed in afterwards. The rest could be seen boarding the other shuttles as the bay door closed. A large older man flipped up the cover and checked some instruments. From what McKendrick could see it looked like a missile by was by far larger than anything he had ever loaded onto an IC. The man pulled the cover back down and proceeded upstairs. A moment later he appeared on the left side of the screen. He must have ordered liftoff because that's exactly what happened. Except the shuttle tilted crazily, The man had a rather unpleasant look on his face and began shouting at the other McKendrick. He must have explained it well enough because even though the man still looked sour he allowed McKendrick to right the craft and proceed. The return to the chikuma was uneventful but as they landed a last goon came in with a rather nasty looking helmet. A stab of pain accompanied this site. McKendrick argued with the man but he would not be swayed. McKendrick got a resigned look on his face and sat back down. The man put the helmet on McKendrick and shortly thereafter he was slumped in the chair. The goon reached over and powered down the shuttle and the image went blank. McKendrick was in a sweat by now. A good two hours of his life had been cleaned out by that man. As he had watched the video his pain had intensified. "Come on you, I'm not through yet, stay with me." With that McKendrick left the shuttle launch bay with the droid following right behind. He stumbled for the turboshaft and when inside set it for deck two. He was clutching his head by the time he reached medibay. The door opened and he collapsed inside. The little droid rolled in and took up a position beside him. RP (OFF) Best I can come up with is that the droids look somewhat like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit but without the cutesy head. Really mechanical articulated arms and what not. About the size of R2-D2 though. Err, if a medic feels like posting it should be obvious the "wipe" is causing all sorts of problems. I was thinking memories trying to resurface and Blades suggested chemical imbalance. It has nothing major to do with the plot so I thought I'd just go ahead and post it and save the emailing Charles [This message has been edited by Charles Lindsey (edited 09-28-1999).]

Err, no actually. Not the way you describe it. Section 18.2 page 111 of the manual. The "Add, Place, Target, Del, Launch" buttons are never red. They are simply greyed out if that option is not available. Add is always available. Click the add button and choose the command. Add another waypoint with a different command if you wish. In the waypoint box "Waypoint 1" may be red if no options were chosen for it. Hope that helps. ------------------ Commander Chavik ICV Phoenix "We Shall Arise From The Ashes" Official BC3K Tester

quote:The majority of the story has been written from the perspective of the command staff, and the RP'ers amongst you are playing the minor characters. What I'm wondering is this, do you prefer to participate in this manner (Caught in the wake so to speak) or have more control over the major events? This has been fun for me. If you decide to let it run amuck next time be prepared to be shaken to your boots. We are a tricky lot. Charles

Section 18.3 ; second paragraph, second sentence. quote:If a unit name is displayed in red, it is not available for deployment but you can still set waypoints for it as normal. If this doesn't help and you actually cannot set waypoints for a craft when you are sure it is available you may have a deeper problem. Solutions: Don't used saved games after patching to 2.08. Ditch it and start new. Re-install and repatch. A file may have gotten buggered somewhere. That's a last resort but a relatively painless one. I just went and checked and the IC's were red because they were readying. SC-1 was red because it was destroyed. SC 2-4 were available (green) as they had crew. ATV's were red because they did not have crew. Try a new game. Oh, and get the new updated manual available on the downloads page if you haven't already. Or the pages update (smaller) if you've printed it. ------------------ Commander Chavik ICV Phoenix "We Shall Arise From The Ashes" Official BC3K Tester

Mission +22 days 00hours 00 minutes Michael McKendrick was lying in bed next to his girlfeiend, in that half dreamy state where things are unreal and too real. She was stroking his hair, arms, and chest and asking him to wake up. "Micheal, wake up, it's time to wake up now. C'mon Micheal, wake up. Michael! If you don't wake up this instant I'm going to throw you out an airlock!" McKendrick opened his eyes at that. Airlock? When his eyes opened he didn't see the four post bed and lace hangings of his girlfriend's bedroom, but instead he saw the stark grey interior of a shuttle craft out of his peripheral vision. What was in his direct view was Stephanie Hoffman. "Where am I? What are you doing here?" he said. "I was sent to do a post flight checkup of shuttle four. Commander stone dean't trust the computer for some reason. I went into the bay and checked the reactor. it showed much more power drain than would have been necessar on a flight such as yours. Then I came up here to do diagnostics on the computers and found you lying in the command chair." "Flight? What flight? I didn't make any flight. This headache is killing me.Sheesh I need to go to my quarters." McKendrick tried to stand up and his knees buckled. HE would have fallen if not for Mis Hoffman's supporting arm. "Yoo need a medic," she said. "No, I just want to go to my quarters for now. i'll be ok. I promise." Miss Hoffman looked at him skeptically but helped him down the stairs and through the shutlle launch bay. The way back to his quarters was slow going but they made it. Miss Hoffman helped to him his bed and he collapsed on it. "Damn, I feel like i've been on a two week drunk," he said. Stephanie Hoffman grinned and replied, "You don't look much better. Let me help you out of clothes." "Umm, no I'm too tired and it wouldn't be right." "No, silly, I'll leave you your modesty but you need rest. And the best way to rest is comfortably. I wear this uniform too and they are NOT comfortable." He was too tired to argue and she slowly, carefully unbuttoned his shirt and removed it. She threw it in the corner where his other old clothes were and went for his pants. A snap ad a zip later they were around his hips. He had to do an embarrasing "scooch" to help her but after she got those off she pulled the covers up to his neck. Once again his girlfriend was stroking his hair and wishing him well. Klaxons!!! McKendrick bolted upright in bed. When he went for his usual "feet on the floor, arm pushes off to the right" procedure he almost fell face first on the floor as his balancing arm met resistance with a warm body. It didn't help that he felt drunk. He stood up and looked at his bed. There was definitely a body there. A female body. A female body that looked like Stephanie Hoffman from what he could see of her curled up form. He looked at her clothed body and loooked at his own mostly naked body and wondered. NAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, he thought. She wouldn't . But there she was. He got dressed and made his way to the galley where he met with Eric Stylan, one of his teammates. asked him how the flight was. McKendrick gave him a blank stare. Eric again asled him about the flight where he picked up the goons. McKendrick was confused. "What flight? What guys? I was checking shuttle stats," McKendrick said as a wave of pain washed through his head. A klaxon sounded and McKendrick knew it was battlestations. He left his tray where it was sitting . The ship's cook would have to get this one, he thought as he ran to his assigned IC. It was IC3 this time. This thing was plagued with troubles and no one had really gotten into it yet to see what was goinng on. All systems were go but the plating loooked weird. McKendrick looked at his loadout profile CAP/S.E.A.D. yeah that should do it. He preesed the butoon and the carousel spun around around wiht a fully loaded clip of SEAD weapons that were ready to be loaded. All of a sudden his friend Eric slapped the override button. Eric? I havne't seen him since, since lunch? Eric quietly pointed out that he had misread the missile loadout and asked him to go inventory vagrant misssiles. McKendrick wondred why that was necessary but did as he wa asked. On the way the saw some men clad in black unifoms. Why they gave him a headache he didn't know. He thought they seemed familiar but yet not. As he entered the weapons bay he began counting vagrants. Then he noticed more Men in Black. His headache intensified.. I gotta get ooutta here, He thought. Where can I go for some peace and quiet? McKendrick ran back to his room to find no one there. He thought there had been a warm body when he left. Damn this headache, he thought, I need some peace and quiet. On his search for peace he ran into several of the men in black. Stabs of pain made their way through his brain as he saw them. He finally found his way to SC-4. Something about this tub seemed famiilar. No time like the present he thought as he hit the launch button. Chrales

Somehow I dont' think Blades would write the main character as being the bad guy. But i could be wrong. What is obvious is that SOMEONE (or several) is being mislead. This thing reaches into the high uppity uppity ranks of Galcom. Someone is trying to cover something up. My thoughts only. Charles

Well Blades, I didnt think you would HAVE to take ove rthe Stephanie character but I thought you would like some input as you like ot do occasionally. If this character is abandoned... Basically she will find me in the shuttle and wake me up. If Miss (?) Leiser Morder doesnt' retain control that is. If she retains control then I will simply wake up myself. No prob. Just wanted to add a twist. Charles