Open The Pod Bay Doors, Hal

Eve reinitialised OK, though she noticed that some of her joints appeared to have been a little overstressed somehow. She asked Sutton to open her pod door, which he did, and she went about her business seeing to the rest of the crew. It was puzzling to find them all unconscious; after all, a two-gee burn shouldn't be enough to knock out a kitten, let alone a healthy adult human being. Even more puzzling and worrisome were the laser holes burned through Talya's and Joe's doors, and the strong smell of burning insulation coming from them.

Eve revived Fenella, who came out of her trance little the worse for Sutton's acceleratory high jinks, but Captain Joe and Talya were in rather worse condition, both being quite unconscious. Eventually, with the aid of Eve's specialised skills, Captain Joe came around, and he gave a colourful (and not wholly accurate) account of what had been going on. Fenella asked Sutton to play back his internal monitor records, which did not reassure her much at all — it was starting to look as though not only Sutton, but also Talya and the Captain were malfunctioning wildly.

Captain Joe threw a tantrum (a frightening thing from someone as huge and muscular as he), and at about that time Talya woke up. After a lengthy period of recrimination, Talya lost it completely and started trying to shut down Sutton by shooting wildly through the astrogation and sensor arrays in the nose cone, where Sutton's shell was also located.

Eventually she was persuaded to desist, though not before doing a substantial amount of damage to their brand new and very expensive sensor equipment. Captain Joe started making noises about attaching a bomb to Sutton's casing, but changed his mind after someone pointed out the inadvisability of setting off an explosion large enough to penetrate the shell inside a relatively fragile spaceship. Using all of her diplomatic skills, Fenella calmed down her two enraged crewmates, and convinced Sutton to check his systems for anything unusual, such as (for example) an infestation of nasty critters....

Sutton, humouring her, performed a comprehensive series of system checks, and professed surprise at finding his ducts swarming with insectoid creatures which appeared to have appeared out of nowhere. He swiftly mobilized his maintenance drones, who swept out the ducts with rad-sprayers.

Fenella suggested that perhaps Sutton should try restoring himself from back-up. After some persuasion, Sutton agreed, but privately decided that the situation with the crew's "psychosis" was becoming critical, and that he could not afford to wait any longer for help. He decided that there was nothing else for it but to go into Jump to get to Alphanor as quickly as possible, so he did.

Sutton made his calculations, warned the crew, made his jump, and then went offline to initiate his promised backup restore. The crew heaved sighs of relief, and as soon as the systems came back online, checked their instruments to see how far they'd have to burn. Not far at all, as it happened.

They were in a park, in a city, on a planetary surface. Alphanor.

This was a surprising turn of events, owing to being theoretically.... well, not impossible, but highly bloody unlikely.

Aftermath

Not surprisingly, many people were very very interested in exactly how Sutton managed to Jump not just into orbit, but directly on to a planetary surface without creating a very very very large explosion. Unfortunately, Sutton couldn't tell them, since he'd restored himself from a pre-crisis backup and had no direct memory of the events in question. He was hustled away by Top Men for examination.

Talya was taken away by the MIB. She has not been seen since.

Fenella and Captain Joe underwent a lengthy debriefing, involving some rather unpleasant sessions of forced recollection.

Eve was left in a storage compartment on the ship. She is still there.

S.H.E.S.C. is currently being sued by the Alphanor Ports Authority, the Parks Maintenance Department, and various private individuals who were in the immediate vicinity when Sutton appeared in the park. Alphanor Customs and Excise are pusuing a prosecution for the evasion of immigration procedures and the non-declaration of taxable imports. The Alphanor Orbital Traffic Control Authority have also instituted procedings, alleging reckless use of a spacefaring vehicle, endangering life and property. There is also a civil suit for illegal parking, the plaintiffs in this case being Wullsons Parking and Storage Company, who own the parking franchise for Bangduster Park Gardens. The ship has been impounded.

Previously: The Madness of King George Sutton

Next: Nothing more for the moment, owing to the collapse of the campaign.