The ship will be able to fly. The engines are in standby at the moment, but could be woken up and started again from the engine compartment.
Just about when Tony is ready to do something irrevirsible with a heavy blunt object to the console, he breaks trough the encryption.
Behind the extra encryption are the crew logs. Tony fasts forward trough the mundane entries (bob packed the wrong cereal!).
The logs detail the discovery of the Drift Rock, the crew’s initial exploration of the asteroid’s surface and the strange “geodes” they found there. The captain then states that the crew was under attack from monsters that “hatched” from the geodes they brought back to the ship (the description of the monsters matches the blue lions you encountered).
The next entry is more hurried, and the sounds of combat are audible in the background. “There’s something else—it came from the rock!” the captain reports with more than a trace of panic in his voice. “We’re getting overwhelmed! I’m going to open the ship to vacuum—maybe that’ll slow them down!”
The log’s final entry was recorded in engineering and shows the captain in his space suit. “Purging the air didn’t work. I’ve set the autopilot to continue on to Absalom Station, but we’re abandoning ship. We’ll fall back to the rock and try to regroup there. Acreon out.”
There are no further entries.
The timestamp of the last entry is two weeks ago.
Internal sensors are wonky. The weird distortion field coming from the Drift Rock seems to be affecting internal sensors as well.
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"So, its likely dose folks is dead on the asteroid they found dese rocks on. See, dey were da eggs of dem dere lion things... and dey were dumb enough to bring 'em on board and such." explains Rat Tony. "We may be able to find dis 'Drift Rock', but it ain't likely dey have survived a full two weeks.
"Then again, deres more chance for salvage dat way!"
After a nights rest, you prepare yourself to head back into the ships corridors. Slowly opening the door, the empty hallway lies ahead of you.
Antonius stomach rumbles. He's also pretty sure the others have to be hungry by now, since they hadnt eaten since yesterday.
Carefully the group moves out of the cockpit, and takes a right in the corridor. You pass two doors, marked as crew quarters.
There is a small galley at the end of the corridor, equiped with a stove and kitchen tops. There are satchels of dried rations, though the quality leaves something to be desired. There is also water to drink.
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Antonius takes time to rummage and find the best bits in the galley, and cobbles together a decent meal. ”Sure, we can just have some of this instant coffee, but it would be made palatable by a little fortification, ya know? Would make the freeze dried eggs at least seem nutritious. ” complains Antonius. ”Der haz to be some hooch on dis ship, somewheres.”
Its fairly easy to whip something up in the kitchen, and with how hungry everyone is, it tastes just fine.
Nothing disturbs you in the galley.
The rooms you passed on your way to the galley are marked crew quarters.
Antonius scurries over to the door down at the end of the corridor.
The door slides open easily. The room contains two simple bunks, a pair of lockers, a small sink, and the miners’ personal possessions. Cheap datapads with books and magazines. Clothing. Pictures of family.
Antonius gives the room a quick check, but finds nothing of value (unless spare socks are really your thing).
"Did you find any mention of an infirmary when you were searching the computers Antonius? We could certainly make use of medical supplies if we're going to explore the rest of the ship and the drift rock?"
There is no infirmary. There was however a room labeled crew storage' in the hall opposite where you are now.
Not finding anything interesting in the first set of quarters, Antonius goes to the next door. But the door doesnt open. It cant be locked. Antonius disabled the locking mechanism of the doors before the group went out. It has to be somehow barricaded from the inside.
In accented common comes a muffled reply trough the door. "No! Go away! No on here!"
"No no, no resque. This empty quarter. Nothing here. No comrade."
There is some whispering back and forth. Another voice speaks up. "This is computer speaking. Room sealed for own protection. Dangerous gas inside. Please leave."
The accent is defenitely goblin....
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"Oh, great. Scavengers." says Rat Tony, as he looks at the door.
To the door, he yells, "I'll bet deres a lot of dangerous gas in der, wut wit' how long yuse been in der. Bet yer gettin' kinda hungry, too. Too bad I can't give you dis nice sammich I gots here in my hand... gonna have t' recycle it. Such a pity."
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"Of course, you can just stay in there until the creatures are done with the rest of the crew and get hungry enough to claw their way through the door. By then there will likely be more of them and they will be desperately hungry. Hungry enough that goblin might sound entirely appetizing," Raz said from where he had been watching this little exchange take place.
Watching the bizarre exchange in fascination Jaru pauses mid-bite as Blixa's words sink in.
"...rat?" he whispers in shocked surpise.
There is furious back and forth whispering from behind the door.
"We demand TWO rat sammiches!"
There is a lot of clunks and clangs from the other side of the door, then it slides open. Two goblins expectantly look up.
"Sammich?"
One of the goblins puffs up its chest proudly. "No, we better crew! We alive!"
The other goblin elbows it in the ribs. "Now, we get sammich?"
"How long have you been hiding in that room?
The goblins eagerly follow Ras into the kitchen, eagerly waiting and shuffeling about while he makes the 'sammich'.
When Jaru asks how long they have been in the room, one of them answers. "Long? Ehhh.... We were in room for... Five!"
When the inevitable question comes for five what? The goblin proudly answers. "Five time!"
The room the goblins vacated smells rather rancid, and is an utter mess. Scavenged into a pile in the corner, Antonius finds the goblins 'stash'. An incendiary grenade I, two shock grenades I, a stickybomb grenade I, two detonators, a tool kit (engineering kit), a fire extinguisher, and 500 UPBs.
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Rasalhague proceeds to be oddly domestic as he puts together a pair of sandwiches for the goblins. He takes his time as he smears the spread, applies cheese product, and layers on the things resembling the classic dressings and an approximation of meat. He even goes so far as to put them on plates and cut them diagonally before handing them over as though for a pair of particularly toothy children.
The goblins are salivating, and hop up and down a bit while waiting for their food creation to be finished.
When Ras holds out the plates, they each grab a plate, then scuttle off to opposite corners of the galley where they noisily eat their sammich.
With the sammiches consumed (or maybe inhaled, so fast they disappeared), they both hold up their plates, eyes wide.
"More?"
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Blixa follows Raz to the galley. Seeing the goblins inhale the proffered delicacies and ask for more, Blixa can not help but smile.
"More? Sure! Let me get those for you. So, how did you all get on this ship? I know you were in that room for an awfully long time. Five! Sweet mercy. And what happened with those space lions? They were mean! So, so mean! Did they eat the other crew?"
The goblins eyes light up when more 'sammiches' are being made. "Ha! We make daring move! We see ship, we think, many of the shineys inside. We take ride on other ship, passing by this ship. We make daring space jump with self made zoomy packs. We enter ship, no trouble. Longshanks always use same password."
The other goblin nods. "Yeah, is always 12345, or 'password'. Easy. We take look around ship, but then...."
Both goblins suddenly realize they are outside the comfort of their bolt hole, and out in the open. The scuttle into the farthest corner, keeping as many of you between them and the corridor.
"Then blue cat comes. And another one. Blue cat no auch from laser. Blue cat eat Gronk. Gronk scream. Then stop. We flee into room, bolt door."
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"Heat resistance," Raz said, nodding to himself as he made the second batch of sandwiches. He doubled the filling this time before handing them out.
"Very few things can stand up to me when I temporarily convince the universe my skin and the surface of a star are not all that different. Those that do often shrug off laser fire and burning accelerant easily."
Its clear the goblins maybe understand half the words Ras is saying, but they do speak the language of food. The new sammiches disappear with lightning speed as well, and both goblins sag in the corner with a content smile on their faces.
"Longshanks good. And kind. Please save us from blue cat. We not want be food."
The other goblin nods. "We only want *eat* food."
Jaru nods affirmatively to the goblin. "I believe we have already killed the blue cat that ate your friend. We have slain four in total so far. Do you know if any others are lurking about the ship?"