Occux pauses a moment , hovering over the cogitator as reams of data stream past. Lifting his head, he appears lost in thought or calculation.
Turning to the others he says "All of the data leads to my conclusion that we are currently in a grounded Imperial void ship. 1. Most if not all of the systems correspond to Imperial navy standard. 2. The facility's linear length exceeds 1 kilometer. 3. There is evidence of a crater caused by the vessel's impact 4. The storage areas correspond to those common among Imperial void ships. counting off the items on his fingers, Occux seems "pleased", if that the word, to be able to cogitate normally after his brief episode.
"So... they landed the ship, then burried it and put a buncha' bunkers on top? Why not keep it in space?"
"It may not have been on purpose, or perhaps the ship was once some form of space hulk crashed here on the surface of this moon millennia ago."
Jacques whipes his brow, glancing over Occux's shoulder as he surfs through the information. "At least we now have a better idea of how this facility itself is at all feasible. It's quite possible many of these other levels are simply not in use as well."
Leaving the offices and swinging around the corner you come across another room, this one has a heavier door that Jacques tool cat immediately bypass. Also past this door and around another corner are two doors, one labeled Lockup and the other unlabelled but polished.
"Lockup... well, if we're lucky the sign applies to anything inside eh boys?"
Octus approaches the other door, and leaning against the wall, he will poke his head around the door frame and open the door slowly, bringing his autogun to bare in the other hand.
"Yeah, lets move. A whole ship. Dang,"
I'm starting to think it's time to anger the power spirits and let them have the whole complex for lunch. But I suppose we should look around a bit more first.
Octus moves towards the polished door and carefully slides it open revealing a very large office with furniture made of real wood. The walls are decorated with numerous framed pictures and mounted heads and horns ranging from herd animals like elk all the way up to a Carnosaur skull (think a T-Rex with horns) that hangs above a working fireplace.
Resting within an ornate case behind the desk is an equally ornate long rifle, the same rifle pictured in many of the shots held by an obviously wealthy and somewhat overweight man in uniform.
The desk has various sheafs of paper across it and a chair behind it sits turned away from you.
Who every office this is must have been important.
JT cuts the pie on the chair, half expecting it to be occupied by some maggot farm of a corpse, half expecting it to be empty.
"Meh, looks like my step-dads office. I bet you had one like this eh Judge? Though probably with a lot more papers and files cluttering up the place. That hunting gun looks right up your alley Skrate. I bet we could pick off a few Orks with that if that thing can take down a carnosaur."
Jacques Guffaws. "If this thing were half it's size, furnished with a chair made of broken glass and stank of dead vermin, then yes, I suppose it might just remind me of home."
If, after JT cuts the chair, there's nobody there, Jacques goes to investigate the paperwork, looking to see who this office belonged to and if, at a glance, any of the events documented pointed to heretical activities.
"Damn, if only we didn't lose the adept on our last mission. He might actually be able to make sense of this."
Carefully sliding the chair around reveals an occupant. The heavyset man from the pictures sits slumped against the back of the chair, a single las wound burned into his temple and finely crafted pistol still held in the grip of rigor.
The various sheets of paper spread across the desk appear to be reports. Shipment, recruitment, accident, requisitions, complaints, progress and maintenance reports can be seen as well as other individual letters and communiques.
As you shuffle through the paperwork the desk comes to life as virtual display spreads across the surface with with four words in the centre. WHAT HAVE I DONE?
"Well, why don't we find out, eh gentlemen? Occux, you mind workin' your magic here?"
Octus then wanders off, first picking up and examining the pistol, then looking about the room, opening any drawers he finds in search of anything of interest.
"Judge,, you gotta be kidding me right? That paper pusher was ready to call down an exterminatus at the first sign of trouble and worse than that he couldn't take a joke."
"heh heh Octus, that pimped out pistol somehow looks right in your hand. You want the holster or are you gonna just carry it ganger style in your pants? Don't shoot yer nuts off though."
"This guy looks important, hopefully he has some access cards on him. Heck, maybe he has network access from here. Too bad he offed himself, but I guess it would be way to easy to find him alive right?"
"Better have a look around I guess."
Awareness Per 31
Tech use
Hey when one of you tech guys get a sec, check to see if the case is trapped. I really want that rifle.
Skrate looks around to see if there is any ammo for the thing (or if it will take regular rifle ammo).
Aside from a bunch of office and desk related items you find a fancy box of very expensive looking and smelling cigars and one of the filing cabinets opens to reveal a fully stocked bar. Another cabinet slides away to reveal a large metal safe with a combination electrical and mechanical lock.
The case doesn't appear to have any obvious locks or security.
The pistol looks of very good manufacture and is covered with filigree and gilt.
Occux looks at Nebdel for a second then gives the case a cursory examination
He then turns his attention to the safe.
Running his hands over is burnished surface he arrives at the lock.
Pausing, muttering imprecations to the machine spirits within he allows his microdendrites to interface carefully with the lock mechanism.
Tech-Use (int:45)
"'What have I done?' Hrm, judging by the pomp and ridiculous ornament, this man must have been a powerful man, connections outside this facility, more than just a security officer. This man had a direct link to the recent catastrophe. Occux, we need you to check the recent activity on this man's cogitator. Find out what he'd done to feel so guilty about."
"Mmm... papa likes, papa really likes." Octus says as he twirls the weapon around his finger and tests the sites. "Anyone see any fresh magazines for this baby?"
"Whatever this guy did, he dropped the ball bad. Some serious shit went down here, and it wreaks of heresy. If I had to hazard a guess, he let in something he really shouldn't have."
Occux manages to unlock the digital portion of the safe but the physical portion requires a security roll.
Afterwards Occux inspects the desk with reveals itself to be a high end cogitator display. Sifting through the system you find that. The vast majority of the system has been administratively locked out from somewhere else but you ca access his personal logs.
Most are of little interest but several catch your attention.
The new Overseer arrived today, a withered little old man, and yet again I am forced to watch over adepts and students and cold cellars. Jumping to this man's tune. When will they understand that playing their little science games here does nothing to win wars against the enemies of man.
Twice now that arrogant fool has endangered this facility in his mad quest for knowledge. Two whole floors destroyed by the fire that those things caused. I don't know what's worse, that i lost twenty three men today putting out fires or that we had to to be the ones to burn everything down just to keep those things contained
Hostilities between my men and his scientists is mounting and he never seems to care. Day in and day out its the same. They decide to thaw out specimens whenever they think they're running low without any regard for containment or even a security presence.
"Wow, so the scientists and the security detail went at it over what this overseer was working on. Those floors that just went up in flames . . . Are they still releasing something down there you think? Or were the scientists overcome with heretical desires and have now let things get out of their control."
"This ship is big enough it could hold Titans and other things their size."
"We can't give an asset like this up to whatever enemy of man is here. Occux can you trace the flow of information back to the oversight that received the message about the purging of those decks? If we can't do that and there is nothing more we can do here we need to keep moving. If someone is watching us as Octus suggests then let's not be sitting duck. Nebel grab that rifle, lets take it with. Octus try to crack that safe if you can. And hey judge, hand me one of those cancer sticks, I need a smoke. You wanna smoke one with me?"
First impression is still right. Let's blow the place. If this is security, would the exterior defenses be controlled from here?
Occux nods at JT's suggestion and begins querying the cogitator on the nature of the data purge and its source, trying to utilize non-secure maintenance sub-routines to get around any security overrides.
Tech use (int:45+10:55)
"Nebel, I would agree with you, but this ship is the size of a small hive. We blow it if we have to, but the faithful may still be in control of parts of the ship and there may be valuable treasure of the Emporer we can reclaim. I think we will need to investigate further, besides if this thing goes supernova we and quite possibly the planet are going to go with it."
Jt is starting to get nervous and peeks out the door.
Normally yes this terminal would have access to all of this but someone has cut this terminal off from the network. Occux can't trace who but he can tell it was from this level.
Julian leaves the room and stands guard outside with the GREL "Nothing so far sir. Dd you find anything in there?"
"Yeah, some brass guy offed himself in there rather than fight it out. He had a Hell pistol and a real nice big hunting rifle in there so we will be using those. I guess the scientist geeks started letting experiments out and the security detachment here was at odds with them. This place is actually . . . Well its pretty big. We need to see if we can find some friendlies down here and take this place back or down . . . In the Emporers name."
"Anyone want a shotgun? I'm gettin' a little weighted down with all these guns, and this puppy more than serves my purposes." Octus says, stroking the hell pistol before spinning it around his finger again.
The safe is solid but not likely deep, any explosives would likely destroy the contents as well.
The other door in the hall you passed is even thicker but had an electronic access pad.
The only remaining areas are the lockup which you saw further down the hall, the living area near maintenance and the 'blacked out' section of this levels map labelled Classified on this level.
Managing to look a little peeved Occux says "My skills do not correlate to the physical penetration of this security device." indicating the safe "Perhaps one of you has the necessary training?"
He then goes out into the hall and waits in front of the electronic access pad.
"And here I was thinking I'd try and quit," Jacques says, handing over a Lho stick.
"J.T.'s right. There's nothing more here for us to figure out if we're locked out. That overseer, the man discussed in security officer's logs, he was the same one we saw in those vid logs back on the other level. Something tells me this man is hugely responsible for this mess. Our objectives haven't changed; find the GREL team, secure the nuke and get to the bottom of what's really going on here."
Jacques is glad to take whatever ammo Octus is willing to give over.
"I'm no purloiner. Octus, you were something of an... outlaw in your previous life, correct? Mind having a crack at the safe?"
After the safe is open and the contents looted, Jacques will go over and wait, shotgun ready, for the electronic pad to be bypassed so they might ingress further.
"No need to be sweet about it Arbites, I was a pimp, though I did dabble in the other fields a' crime an' debauchery an' other crap. Now let's see what Dr. Cammilus' dealin' with..."
Agi: 39
"We are in business boys an' girls, now what's Colonel Highborn McSuicide got hidden in this little box a' his?"
Did the body have any access cards on it?
"Hopefully an all access pass, keys to a fueled and ready to fly Thunderhawk, or codes to reprogram the AA guns so we can go home after this. Heh, or maybe some good amsec to go with these fine iho sticks."
"Lets try the lock up next."
JT thinks hard on what they saw at the entrance. We're the scientists fighting to get in? Or out? Did it look like the security types died defending this place? I wonder if they tried taking the Overseer into custody and that's what touched this off. If I was a loyalist where would I hole up. I guess engineering, the armory, or engine rooms. The power was off, we turned it back on. What did we just give energy to?
A very expensive box of cigars (imperial nobility level of extravagance)
Several data scrolls and pict-files
A box of letters
Several small stacks of throne gelt
Four clips for the hell pistol
Folders with Picts of various individuals doing things they shouldn't
A gilded data-slate
A large box at the bottom contains a suit of carapace armour designed for his wide girth, (much too big for anyone in the group without modifications)
Yes Nebdel, now that someone is searching him you do find three key cards (red, black and white with three blue stripes)
After leaving the office and rejoining the others near the other locked door you notice the electronic lock has a slide port on the side. The white and blue card opens it, revealing securities evidence and armoury. Unfortunately it appears to have been ransacked.
Moving to the Lockup you find that the red card accesses this door and as soon as you open the door you hear wailing and screaming from the other side. Some appears to be in pain while others are tormented and more are a mix of sinister and terrifying.
For the search roll.
"Prepare yourselves, this isn't going to be pretty. Sounds like we are going to have to bring the Emperor' justice to some and his mercy to others!"
Silent move, Ambush ability
JT attempts to move in and get a jumpshot on whatever foe is inside.
Muddy soil rained down from the roof from the melting snow above the bunker. it mixed with the bloody mess that was the earthen floor of the makeshift infirmary. There were amputated limbs, pulped organs and unidetifiable remains of human patients stacked in open topped Q-ration crates waiting to be taken out to be burned. There wasn't any deisel to do that anymore. Medicae staff and doctors moved about like wraiths over a graveyard, their eyes hallow and dark, the lack of sleep and gore spattered uniforms making them appear to be forms of undead. There wasn't any medicine left, they were salvaging bandages. This is where the critically injured enlisted were brought, the officers were flown to naval ships in orbit. It was the screams. The screams of the maimed and dying! . . .
Occux grabs the dataslate, letters, scrolls and pict-files from the safe.
After unceremoniously dumping the body on the ground, he the sits at the desk and begins sorting through the material
Data slate
Tech Use (Int:45)
Letters / Scrolls / Pict-files
Literacy (int:45+10)
There is the option to spend fate points for rerolls
The pictures appear most likely to be evidence of individual wrongdoings.
The data slate contains several reports and missives from maintenance crews working in other sections of the ship. It appears by these reports that over eighty percent of the ship is unusable currently and crews are slowly expanding the facility by repairing sections of the crashed ship as they go.
Jacques will take the cigars for himself. Everybody has their vices.
He'll wait for Nebdel to move in silently, but considering the silent part isn't exactly going to well, he'll be ready to move in at the first signs of a struggle.
Occux piles the documents neatly with the dataslate and places the bundle in his satchel; for further review.
Then, ever practical, he gathers up the throne gelt from the safe ( assuming it's convenient to carry)
Following the others into the armoury, he lends his own efforts to uncovering anything useful.
Perception 35
Slipping through the door into the lockup behind reveals a long corridor lined with cells, each filled with humans in various states. Before you can be seen dozens of men screaming and shoving at each other in some cells while right beside them can be seen men and women covered in blood and fecal matter marking odd symbols and shapes upon themselves and the walls and floor. In a few cells you can see only one or two people, also covered in blood, sitting on their heels eating something while several bodies occupy the rest of their cells.
Probably the most unusual are the humans in various cells clawing at their flesh crying out, "They're in my skin!" or "It's inside of me" or "I can feel it crawling, help me!"
"Shit these guys looked pretty F'd!"
"I hate to say it, but these poor people look like they have gone to the dark side or are well on their way. Judge do you know if jails like this have a doomsday option? I hate to say it, but, I think we need to purge these people. After asking a few questions of course. I don't like these symbols people are painting."