Hmmm... Looks like an entry hatch of some kind. I wonder if it's electronic or mechanical? Fiddling with her tools and her hacking kit, Kit tries to determine how best to open the hatch.
As soon as Kit uses the word open in her head the hatch opens...
The interior of the vessel is revealed as one huge chamber, filled with the black, misty fog. The interior components appear to be made from some dark crystalline material, but you recognize none of the equipment or machinery. The hazy black air is almost stifling. An iris, much like the one you have just opened, is barely visible at the back of this compartment, some 90 yards away
Gil has been mesmerized at all this new alien stuff. she brings up the rear of the group.
reaching the "ship" maybe we should check the atmosphere in there before we go in. she suggests.
suddenly she looks for a way to collect the slime on the outside of the ship.
"Oh, yeah! That's worrisome!" Kit remarks. "I just thought, OPEN, and it did. Hmmm..."
CLOSE!
OPEN!
She watches the hatch, testing to see what happens.
Kit DC 15 Reflex
Kit thinks open a little too fast for her body to react and she gets pushed about 40 feet.
"Quit foolin' around," Vagoru grumbles.
He hefts his new gauss gun in one pair of hands and his tactical Doshko in the other two. He seals his armor against vacuum.
"Shall we have a look? I think this is what we came for."
Bronen stays guard in front of the ship while Dronen continues to remove the pike from the hull.
Dronen continues to be unsuccessful retrieving the pike.
Huh... OPEN!
Kit approaches the entry hatch and scurries inside.
You go inside but the soup is so thick that you cannot see what is inside.
Gil, unsure what she can do, simply looks for some sort of control console. maybe find some fan or ventilation system controls to start some air circulation.
Snorri moves in after Kit to back her up switching from his ranged weapon to his large hefty axe.
Kit tries to think about the mist clearing.
Dissipate! Uh... Go away mist! Clear vision!
"Perhaps we can gerry-rig some kind of set-up from the station air system, to purge the atmosphere from here."
"If we could vent it into space that would be ideal."
Kit wanders out to see Vyun, stroking her chin in thought. "I could try." She looks around for a way to access the station air system.
"Hey AI! Is there a big fan on the station I can easily access? Or a way to mess with the ventilation in here?"
"We could build some kind of duct and connect it to this ship. The existing ventilation system has to have fans and such. Just make sure the bad air goes out into space and not somewhere else in the station."
The AI says in a chipper manner, "The ventilation system can be made to expunge some air. To hook something up to the ventilation sector you would need to go Zeta sector for the materials."
"Yeah... I'd need materials if I'm going to build anything."
Kit thinks back to their ship.
She asks the others, "Do we want to risk checking out Zeta sector?"
"We could always just try smashing that weird thing. Or blowing it up." she shrugs. "It probably won't work, but it's worth a try, ain't it?"
"I wonder if fire will work?"
Kit scampers over to the hatch, places a hand on her gauntlet and causes it to overheat. Suddenly a burst of fire and thermal energy explodes from the gauntlet and into the ship's interior.
Some of the space inside the ovoid burns off but is soon replaced by more of the material making the air thick.
Gil, with the ventilation idea she was thinking about is all but useless right now. she tries to see if there is anything she can figure out about this mist/fog/steam/or whatever it is
Kit shrugs. "Well, sh**."
Noticing Gil examining the fog, Kit wanders over to her and cocks her head. "Hey, you're smart right? Like, a doctor and stuff? What do you think?"
"So the walls are giving off this crap?"
"Maybe we should take some samples and get them back to a lab. Then Doc here can look them over."
Kit looks around at the ground to see if any chunks of the weird ship-rock have broken off.
She picks the hunk up and shows it to the others.
"We could test this, too, hey?"
Looking at Gil, she asks, "Where's the nearest lab?"
The AI says, "Our routine scanners have come across a foreign substance in Gamma Sector."
"Auw, man! It's spreading." With a sigh she pulls up the schematics of the base on her comm unit. "Hmmm...."
"I think we should get this stuff analyzed or... whatever... before heading to check out Gamma. We need to know how to fight it to have any chance of fighting it. What do you say, Doc? Let's head back to that plant lab we passed and give it a whirl."
Gathering all of her samples, Gil nods, yes. I need to examine these specimens. I hope to find some sort of weakness, or at least, maybe some weed killer.
You gather some samples and then you make your way first out of the black crunchy desert and then follow the main roads back to the area where the research labs are.
This area of the station has hydroponics, various horticultural laboratories designed to help produce hybrid plant species capable of better surviving stresses that earth-species plants might suffer within the environment of Planet Kask, and a small (100 by 100 foot) experimental garden. The horticultural devices are designed for use by herbologists and horticultural scientists, and are thus not automated. They are fully stocked with robotic assistants (awaiting activation) and supplies. All buildings require the presentation of a station wrist band to gain ingress.
The buildings include enclosed microbiological workstations of very small size (160 square feet) to moderately large facilities (400,000 square feet and several hundred yards per side) with controlled plant growth areas, automated cycling grow lights, and irrigation.
Kit follows the others into the plant lab. She lets out a whistle.
"None of these are going to try to kill us, are they?"
Then she wanders up and casts her eyes over the robots, checking to make sure they all seem to be behaving properly...
Gil attempts her station access to get into the labs.
Gil looks to set up a lab to begin her examination of the samples. looking to find a weakness, or at least the biological composition of the stuff she collected.
More than a little paranoid at this point Snorri readies himself to retaliate against any attack launched by the robots Kit as examining.
The robots are not moving.
You find the atmosphere and the samples you have found to be completely alien to anything the Fleet has come across in its entire history. You get the feeling to figure out how it functions and such may take weeks and the task would be best handled by a more analytical laboratory and a large team of researchers.
You can also discern that the funghi may be sentient.
At Gil's news, Kit sighs. "Well, that sucks. I guess we'll just wander off blindly into danger again. Greeeeeeat."
Kit grabs her gear and gets ready to leave the lab. "So, where to boss?" she asks Bro. "Should we head to Zeta Sector for supplies so we can kick the ventilation system into hyperdrive, or go to Gamma to investigate the spread of foreign substances?" After a moment she adds, "Odds are they both end in pain."
The Drone speaks up in its robotic voice, "Best we find supplies so we can be ready for what we would face in Gamma." It is now holding the tactical spear that Bronen once wielded and Bronen carries nothing.
"So this object latched onto the system, I imagine it's not something from an obvious source local in system or the possibility would have been raised to us unless it was hidden somehow."
You decide to leave the Beta Sector on your way to Zeta. Going through Alpha sector, you see an open warehouse. As you approach this warehouse, which on your way, you notice that its doors stand open. Within lie several small crates labeled “specie ingots”. A small deactivated loading robot stands near the crates.
Bronen and Dronen maneuver over into a combat ready position next to the robot.
Kit approaches the robot warily with her gun trained on on it.
If she gets all the way up to the crates without the robot brutally slaughtering her, she pokes at it with her foot....
If it still doesn't move, Kit examines the crates, prying them open and peeking inside.
The robot comes to life and says, "You are not authorized in this warehouse, leave or be des---stroy---- yed"
Engineering DC 7