Vek takes point, maintaining close contact with Leila in case of traps or other hidden surprises.
Cueta's skin crawls and the presence of her patron is like bees buzzing in the back of her mind. "Couldn't they just be like shock troops or something, rather than prisoners? Like their whole purpose is to stand around until they get unleashed on someone? Do we want to take the chance?"
Of course, Cueta's theory conveniently disregards the distress signal, but she does not want to find out what lies on the other side of the door. The pilot raises sword, ready to rush forward, and flashes with a pulse of light from her passenger.
"Maybe sitting down is their fun..." Leila speculates and follows Vek close by.
As the group moves in they see a room brighter than most of the ship, instead of dim red strips of light, crisp white light floods down from the entire ceiling. A series of four barred cells runs the length of the aft wall, each with a barred door with a keypad lock. A metal cabinet hangs on the fore wall, behind a small metal desk with a computer terminal and a metal chair built into it.
Vek and Leila are able to shout out a warning though on the four undead creatures, looking like dwarves in spacesuits taking cover around makeshift barricades, one behind the metal desk around the main part of the room while the cells are empty.
Yarr going' to gives us yer ship after we killlll youuu a drawling voice comes over your internal armor comm systems on the general channel.
Leila recognizes these as Marooned Ones. They're a staple of horror trids so she's read up on them plenty.
"PISS!" Astrianna shouts after the undead are spotted and identified.
She bursts into the room with pistol drawn, leveling it at the nearest undead. "This one first! Make it quick!" Are her instructions as she attempts to blast the Marooned One with a nullifying blast of cyro-liquid.
"Acknowledged." Vek's hands glow to match the eyes of the first of undoubtedly many undead the Starfinders will encounter on this deathly vessel. With a burst of light, he races up to Astrianna's target and swings his fist!
"Yes, Captain. Focusing on your target."
Prospero-4 follows in to the room, easily finding the target based on Astrianna's shooting. He lets exocortex mark the enemy and whirls his heavy cannon toward it.
Cueta flies forward, sword held high, and brings it down at the nearest walking dead dwarf.
"This isn't the sort of trid I want to be in!" Leila grunts and takes aim at the designated undead. Right now she could really go for a slice-of-life trid - a bit of calm. But she'd have to work with what she was given and make a heroic one instead!
"Hah! Take that!"
Cueta misses her sword swipe so hard that her sword slices through and gets stuck in the desk the closest of the marooned dwarves is hiding behind.
Fortunately no one else misses and Leila's shot right between the dwarves eyes is more than enough to end its undead existence.
As both Vek and Cueta moved around the desk to get at the dwarf, it's the three ranged attackers that are in range of a barrage of pistol fire from the starboard end of the room.
Six shots ring out, aimed at Prospero and Leila. And all six shots miss.
However just as they stop firing an undetected trap springs into action and bathes the inside of this room with a wash of negative energy. Astrianna and Cueta are unable to resist its full effects while Prospero, Leila, and Vek are barely able to fend at least some of it off.
The three remaining marooned ones seem to be energized by these energies momentarily bathing the room.
"Erp!!" Leila tries to weasel her way out of the negative energy. Ouch! She glanced around trying to find the source of the trap, wondering if it would trigger again. In the meanwhile though - more pew pew!
Cueta ignores the enemies' assault, calmly pulling her sword from the desk, even as a pulse of starlight shoots from her back and arcs inexorably into the nearest undead. The sword slips free and Cueta turns towards their foes preparing to take flight again.
"Who traps the brig?!" Astrianna says through gritted teeth as negative energy wracks her to the bone. She quickly sprints from the doorframe and leaps behind the desk Cueta stabbed for some reason.
Popping up with her gun raised, she paints a laser sight onto a new foe. "Next! We're on a schedule here!" Her pistol noiselessly fires a freezing blast across the room.
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"The damned spiteful dead!" Leila replied and, when she realized that that really didn't narrow things down on this ship, added: "The marooned ones."
Vek’s feet pound noiselessly against the dead ship’s floor as he moves to engage the captain’s target. ”We’ll find out,” he answers Leila calmly, the light around his fists continuing to grow brighter.
While Astiranna misses, nobody else does and one of the two shots from Prospero that lands ends the existence of another of their ambushers.
With two of the four down the other two undead dwarves abandon their cover and shamble at Vek, moving in to flank the Vesk soldier. The first swipes at Vek with a serrated knife. The other's arms reach out and try to restrain him.
Neither attack succeeds but Vek gets the feeling that if he isn't able to keep fending off their attacks then things might go very badly for him.
Leila flips up her shiny new knife and dashes in to flank the flankers! Haha! That's what you get for playing dirty (and being on the other side. In more ways then one)!
"Take *that*!" the halfling gleefully taunts as her present really pays it forward!
Vek doesn’t seem to notice the knives and grabbing hands as he pulls the light of the stars not yet extinguished around himself. His eyes close for a moment, then open again to reveal bright flames that reach out for his companions. The vesk himself turns to the undead who itself is also flanked and swings his burning fists with supernatural speed!
Astrianna pops out from behind the cover of the desk like a vengeful death-gopher from Seres VI. "That's how we do it! my next target!"
Sword back in her hand, Cueta flies forward, boosted by Vek's starpower and heartened by Astrianna's direction. The pilot holds her sword as if its tip was the vanguard of a spear, and drives it at her foe again and again.
With the supernatural speed provided by Vek, Prospero-4 maneuvers into better position, locks the enemy pointed out by Astrianna as his target, and blasts away with his artillery laser. Teamwork as its best!
While Cueta, very disoriented by the miasma of evil and undeath surrounding the group misses again, everybody else lands their attacks. The one flanked by Leila and Vek practically disintegrates under the melee assault. Astrianna lands a direct headshot on the last one and Prospero brings it down to its last legs.
It snarls and tries to swipe at the human and vesk surrounding it with its knife but is unable to land a single hit. Just beofre it is cut to pieces by the combined focus of the whole team it wheezes in your comms Givvee up, you will faill, and regret it for an eternity of undeath....
Just as it falls the team gets to work finding the source of the necromantic energies that had bathed what seems to be a brig as soon as they entered. It's only because they felt which way it came from that they find the death ray itself cunningly hidden right next to a very hidden security camera. The team realizes that the whole level is festooned with these.
The death ray is also recharging and will fire again in four minutes unless the team finds a way to disable it. It's jury rigged so engineering is an option, someone with a lot of mystical knowledge could also attempt to remove the necromantic focus through which it draws its energy. There's no hacking possible here unfortunately, it's a very mechanical trap.
Leila shudders but quickly decides to simply not think about the ghastly words. She takes a deep breath and looks around for anything else to distract herself with. Like that trap!
"Oh hmm look at that." And yes, there were probably more. But ... this one first! She climbs/scurries/jumps up towards it and inspects it closer. After attaching herself to the roof with a clip she gives her first verdict. "A poor and abandoned death ray. Let's try and make sure it doesn't bother us again! Prospero wanna give me a hand?"
Then she opens up her small toolkit, looks at it briefly, then closes it and reaches for THE CLAW!!! With a grin she applies the prying end to the death-ray. "Do you think we can just jank it loose?"
Cueta closes her eyes and senses her passenger reaching out to the energy within the death ray, as if trying to smother it. The feeling, Cueta thinks, is not unlike giving a forceful hug, at once filled with love, concern, and a warning, like a mother embracing a wayward child.
Sighing, Cueta opens her eyes to see if the trap is still charging.
Cueta's inner sense proves to be exactly what is needed as the vile energies of the necromantic focus give way to her embrace and fades into nothingness.
Now that they have time, they notice the cabinet under the desk where one of the Marroned ones was hiding is open. In it they find
a serum of enhancement (commando)
a grappler
100 feet of adamantine cable
an advanced medkit
a pouch of nine plasma sapphires worth quite a bit of credits each, all shineing with the light equal to a beacon without using any power source
A tenth jewel appears to be a slightly brighter plasma sapphire, but Vek identifies it as a naturally occurring standard photon crystal.
There is also one small slot that is empy.
The computer on the desk seems to be dedicated exclusively to controlling the doors of the four cells. An entry on the main screen of the terminal notes the cells are supposed to contain “four dwarf form corporeal undead: names unknown, loyalties unknown”.
On the destroyed marooned ones themselves the group finds not much more than Gear kasatha microcord III armor, an advanced semi-auto pistol with around 30 small arm rounds, and tactical knives.
The most interesting find on the one hiding behind the desk though is a digital storage device the same size and general appearance of a humanoid finger bone that seemed like it could fit in the empty slot in the cabinet. At one end there is a Pact World standard micro plug that can be inserted into any of the computers onboard the Empire of Bones. It's not hard for the computer savvy to identify these as security keys that initiate cryptographic handshake protocols. These should help with accessing sensitive information if the group is able to find a computer terminal that actually has anything like that. Devices like these wouldn't be enough on their own to gain access, but having one in possession certainly helps.
Popping up from behind the desk as the last marooned one falls, she redundantly directs the others to deal with the trap while she begins to go through the cabinet.
"Drugs, junk, cable... precious jewels?! What a bunch of hoarders. This was probably claimed by the Corpse Fleet when they picked up these Marooned ones. A bunch of asteroid miners that met a terrible fate, I bet." She casually slips the cable, medkit, and plasma sapphires into her duffel bag and then starts rooting through the nearest undead's pockets.
"Oh ho! What's this? Well, we came looking for help and I think we found it." She proclaims while lifting up the bonedrive. "If we can find a main terminal and plug this bad boy in, maybe we can get ourselves a map and figure out the way to the bridge."
"Captain, you are injured." Vek's voice is calm as he keeps an eye out for trouble from the corridor. "We need you in peak condition - and more importantly, your fans will want to see you operating at a hundred and ten percent." It's difficult to tell under the helmet, but one might think the vesk was smiling.
Cueta sits atop the desk and closes her eyes, waiting for her adrenaline to subside. "Where to next then? We gonna look for a terminal?"
"Mhm." Leila inspects the weird finger-drive. It almost made up for the disappointment of not getting to THE CLAW the deathray. Almost! But there would be other times ... Oh hmm.
"I wonder if they're as paranoid about the rest of the ship? And if we could tap into that monitor network as well somehow..." The halfling speculates. They'd have to keep their eyes open for any other computer-corpses.
Astrianna waves Vek's concerns away, though she is secretly flattered. "One jury-rigged trap isn't enough to slow me down!" She proudly proclaims while putting pieces of tape over every hidden security camera they find. "But I need everyone in top shape if we're really going to pull this off, so take a breather."
"Now, where can we find a place to plug in our newest frend here..." Looking over the pirated map with a scrnched up face, she jabs a finger onto Leila's PDA hard enough to briefly discolor the screen. "There! A7 looks like some sort of networking center, and it's right down the hall. Let's go."
"We will just have to guess where the terminals would be. I not able to access any networks here, so I have no insight on that. Astrianna's guess is as good as mine."
And even if there was wireless access point, the android isn't sure if he'd like to log in to the dead networks. Sometimes old-fashioned keyboards will have to do the job.
"A7, then?"
Leila yelps and pulls her PDA away from Astri. Gee the heavy fingers of the tallfolk! Only once she has inspected it carefully does she nod and agree. "Let's go to A7!"
After a quick breather the group moves on to the large room across from the brig. Having found one of the hidden security cameras they now notice them everywhere, too many to block out.
They find a dark room at the port of the hanger they're infiltrating. Only a few lit buttons and displays pierce the blackness, illuminating no more than the rough shape of the area.
Panels of computer screens, bundled data cables, and digital readout displays line the walls, with more than a dozen chairs arrayed in front of them. The constant chatter of beeps and clicks accompanies the data streaming across every readout.
In front of almost every terminal is a cybernetic zombie. These are far more active than the ones they've already experienced in the hanger door control room. They jerk and shift and tap on the keyboards in front of them, controlled by some remote source, connected to the digital realm not only by their fingers but by the tendon like cables jammed directly into their eye sockets and spines. They ignore the intruders completely.
Cueta notes a small hidden divot at the center of the room which turns out to be a very well hidden security hatch. From within she retrieves another of the fingerbones with a dataport. A second secured access keys.
Looking over the empty terminal, Prospero recognizes it to be connected to a Tier 7 computer and is a hardened secure access point. It would be possible though very difficult to hack. However it would be easier to splice into the cables going from one of the occupied terminal and the zombie manning it. It would require clever engineering, somehow keeping the zombie docile while it's cable was maniuplated, as well as some hacking to gain access too, but it would be easier than directly attempting to crack the terminal. The found security keys would assist with either attempt at a hack.
As they discuss options in the chattering data center, Astrianna comes to a decision. "The entire galaxy is counting on us to get this right. We're going to splice into the cable." She says in her captain voice. "Cueta, use your magic s%** to subdue the zombie's physical body. Leila, make a physical connection into the zombie's spinal tap cable and connect it to Prospero. Prospero, you will take control of the zombie's cybernetic processes and use it to access the systems. I will watch the terminals and use the security keys when prompted." Swinging around, she points a finger to their newest Starfinder.
"And Vek!... Watch the hallway, we don't want any surprises." The vlogger is clearly more concerned about Corpse Fleet marines trying to put holes in them than the moral implications of irreversibly mind-controlling and abusing a tech zombie.
"Eww! This will be ichy!" The halfling complains but gleefully unpacks the Eoxian medkit - finally a chance to use that scary-looking drill!
** That was a most disturbing noise. The fact that her suit was airtight really helped with the smell though. "Mind the spraying bits! I'll get the cable plugged into the we-*uh* right the squishy bits riiiight about now."
Vek is quite happy to keep an eye on the hallway rather than his companions drilling into a "living" creature's skull. Subtly he tries to find the noise-dampening settings on his new armor and crank them up as high as possible.
Typical... Prospero-4 took a moment to evaluate the countermeasures on the computer, and about to take up the challenge to hack into a tier 7 mainframe - when the reckless half-elf is already splicing into the cables.
"Fine. Let's hack through the zombie, then.
The android pulls up the cables from his custom rig, and plugs them into the zombie cyberbrain.
Cueta frowns, the realization dawning on her that she might just become the group's zombie talker. Placing a hand lightly on the zombie's forehead, Cueta lets her passenger flood the creature with its warmth. The sensation of wings lightly beating against her skin sends a playful tickle across Cueta's cheek, and then it is gone, replaced with that forceful, stern, yet loving energy. Cueta squirms, and squeezes the zombie's head harder.
The zombie's moaning and writhing is stifled by Cueta as Leila so expertly splices into its interface cable that it doesn't even notice the violation much. This gives Prospero and Astiranna time, with the aid of the two security keys to jack into the data flow and observer what is happening.
This is one of thousands of computational centers. Data is fed into the system from a central command center where users with actual intelligence make use of the ossified neural pathways in the cybernetic zombie's corpse brains as a distributed network of 'servers'. The only reason there are terminals and keyboards is so the Corpse Fleet can take advantage of standard mass manufactured Pact Worlds hardware.
The actual code and logic flowing over the cables and then through the deadcells of the zombies is identical to the pristine shifing of 1s and 0s and qubits over more... conventional hardware... but the sensation of tapping into is is as abhorrent to Prospero as whatever Ceuta is going through as she tries to keep the zombie from bucking and raising an alarm through her mystical senses.
Neither of them are able to stand it for long but in that time Prospero is able to glean the purpose of the server farm is to process reams of sensor data from the many many science officer scanning devices the Empire of Bones makes use of.
It, along with all the other similar farms are controlled by a central control that is elsewhere, in probably a very secured part of the world/warship they are on. Accessing that will actually give the group control over the computer and engineering operations of the ship. This is just an outpost receiving commands and returning results.
From the sensor data itself they learn that the suppression of the system's defenses seems to be going within the Empire Of Bones parameters and in fact the ship is starting to slowly head towards the center where the prize of the emerging Stellar Degenerator awaits.
Both Prospero and Cueta jerk away from the zombie and, after an absent heartbeat, the zombie returns to the jerky tips and taps it was engaged in before.
Astrianna watches Cueta and Propsero seem to jerk back to life at the same time the zombie jerks back to unlife. It made for a really cool shot, and she was pleased it would need no editing. "Well? Did you figure out how we're going to accerlate this stolen funeral procession directly into the degenerator?" She asks while retrieving the handshake security keys from the console.
After being hooked to the zombie, Prosper0-4 had a heatlhy amount of firewalls and neural dampeners in place, and Astrianna's question comes through very muddled. It takes some time for the android to even understand he is spoken to.
"Not...
...here.
Need to...
..find
...central
....control."
Finally, realizing that he is out from the undead brain and network, he starts shutting down the neural shielding.
"This was just a server farm for sensor analysis, no access to the controls from here. We need to find and physically access the control center if we hope to alter the ship's course."
Leila pats Prospero on the side and gives him a sympathetic look. It was one thing to splice into a zombie - a whole other thing to actually jack in. Bleh! "Are you ok?"
Astrianna snaps her fingers in front of Prospero's face as he groggily responds, a noiseless and symbolic gesture in the vacuum of the undead capital ship. "Hey, come back. You're not a tech zombie."
She smiles when he becomes cognisant again, but her expression swiftly morphs into a frown. "So we're not going to need to storm the bridge or anything, we just need to hack the central control..." The half-elf slams her fist into an open palm as a plan comes together in her mind. "...and because the ship is already on a course for the stellar degenerator, all we need to do is hijack the thruster output controls and set them to maximum while we make our escape! Even if they shut down the reactor, if the ship achieves enough accerlation they won't be able to stop becuase of this ship's massive inertia! Thank Calistria my physics professor was hot, I actually paid attention!"
The group does a quick reconnaissance of the remaining rooms, the rooms to A3,A4, and A5 have similar locks and, while tricky to override, should not be too hard for a clever engineer or a good hacker.
The one to A8 however is more secure, and it has four slots where security keys can be inserted exactly like the 2 the group has discovered, along with a sensor pad that looks like a biometric palm reader.
It will be harder to break into though the security keys should help.
"Huh." Leila inspects the lock. "Try and find the other two keys?"
"The smaller the chance of us raising the alarm and bringing every undead soldier still aboard down upon our heads, the better," Vek agrees.
Astrianna stares at the biometric palm reader with a furrowed brow. []"Why do the Corpse Fleet use biometrics? That makes absolutely no sense. Maybe if like... they have some unique negative energy identification."[/b] She was no willing to admit that her infosphere-level understanding of biology was failing her.
"Well I guess there are more keys, so let's go look for them." It was just a few metrons walk down the hallway to the nearest room that looked like more servers on their pirated map.
Leila easily strips through the electronic lock of the system. However, her exuberant confidence leads to a slight mishap as, at the very last second, a slight slip causes the wrong wires to cross and a light turns red.
The door slides open and, bizarrely, a gust of air rushes out, sucked into the airless corridor they are standing in. Leila and Cueta are able to keep their balance but Vek gets knocked prone by the unexpected blast.
r
Before the air dissipates into the vacuum, the group's armour system beeps a warning that an invasive toxin has bypassed the filtration systems. Thankfully, even though it smells like a sharp knife stabbing into your lungs there doesn't seem to be any lasting problem.
As Leia stares inside she sees, behind a security robot modified to look skeletal at the treshold, what looks like an undread drow male holding a hammer and a pistol.
Ah, so this system does have some living defenders. A voice comes from over the general voice channel. More meat to convert to serve the Corpse Fleet.
Leila recognizes the undead as being a nihili. She knows two things about it!
Prospero-4 stays back, trying to peer into the room and analyse who is the more dangerous target - the robot or the undead.
"This one seems to have a bit more words on its vocabulary than the previous ones. Officer material?"
The nihili thinks he will be protected by the robot, but Prospero-4 thinks he could persuade the robot to switch sides momentarily. He activates the exocortex wireless hacking protocol, and starts overriding the robot's default programming.