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Akkedis watches FR10R work, "Neutralizing them is wise, can you identify them? Should we preserve them for Starfinder study?"
Akkedis waits for the team to assess the larvae and re-assemble.
"Let's open the bridge doors. Oda, fire support behind me. Ears to the side with magic. Kato my flank. Captain Mustachio a few paces back to keep us focused. FR10R provide fire support with Oda. Plan?" If the team agrees, and once everyone forms up Akkedis opens the door to the bridge.
Opening the door...
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FR10R and Ears are able to fix this awful problem. Before the larvae can react, they are being safely crushed. While they carry out this holy task, everyone else is free to look in any other direction. This leads to an important discovery: Next to an unfinished meal, a key card!
In one of the overhead storage containers, there are also two mk 1 serums of healing.
Akkedis doesn't see anything threatening about these doors. But he isn't able to open them, either. Locked tight by lack of power, like the door to the mess hall. You'll need another battery.
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Oda heads back to the chamber with the awesome view of space. She searches around for 3 or 4 pieces of steel that are roughly wedge shaped.
Once she has them she will go back to the group. Once there she will lay on the floor and slip the wedges into place like door-stops. Standing up she powers up her armour-storm special ability, the "hammer fist" and kicks the wedges into place, 1 or 2 per side.
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Ears watches appreciatively as Oda rigs the door open. He tries to make helpful suggestions about the position and orientation of the wedges. When she's through he says, "Let's move everyone back into the main cabin. If this door closes when the power comes off we should all be on this side."
Ears waits until everyone is out of the mess hall before disconnecting the battery from the mess hall circuit and connecting it to the bridge.
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You rig up several stops and slam them into place under the door, denting its underside to match. Ears makes to close the mess hall door, only for it to slow midway with a clacking of stalled gears. Rather than continue doing so until the slats or door shatters, Ears can power it down. He then moves the battery to the bridge's terminal, and the double doors clatter open.
The ship’s bridge is alight in red warning screens. The nearing ethereal storm looms beyond the forward viewing platform, while the ship’s failing power causes each station’s panels to flicker intermittently. A battered captain’s chair oversees two tiers of descending operations panels. In fact, everything in this room looks torn up to some degree. One kasatha corpse sits placidly in the captain's chair, another in the lower row of seats. Both are even more badly mutilated than the last pair.
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Mustachio is about to have it a whole lot worse. FR10R also notices, but likely isn't so disturbed. Both realize that the kasatha in a pilot's chair isn't quite what it seems. Something has burst open the corpse (possibly when it was still alive) and is wearing it as some sort of gruesome camouflage. For the moment, it remains still, not aware its cover has been blown again.
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The creature shrugs off what's left of the kasatha with another explosion of blood and gore. Beneath lies a four-armed being covered in spiny red flesh. A bit bigger than Ears, it carries several makeshift bludgeons and a small gun. It rushes at you with terrifying speed!
"SCREEEEEEE!"
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Akkedis peers at the figure in the pilot seat, slightly surprised when the creature begins to rise... Waiting for Ears, his eyes widen as he feels power surge through his sidearm.
Taking a slightly defensive stance, he fires on the creature... His weapon flares as it fires.
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Akkedis takes aim with his powered-up pistol, but the xill is too close. It snaps at him with several layers of mandibles. The vesk has been playing it safe, and barely manages to dodge. His foe has no such luxury, having stuck its head out to attack. When the gun's light fades, the head is gone, with the corpse it was previously attached to just hitting the floor.
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Kato has the trigger on his pistol half way depressed when he sees the creature's head disappear. "Nice job Ears and Akkedis. Let's make sure there are no more of these things. He then shoots each one of the corpses once to see what happens.
If nothing happens he will search the room for clues and signs of danger.
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"Sweet shot, Akkedis. Way to slow it down, Oda. If it had been any faster, it might have got to Akkedis before I could boost his weapon. "
"It's a Xill, nasty transplanar creautures. It corroborates the larvae in the kasatha corpses. I wonder if the Scholar was just an ill-fated ship; even here near the storm, where the boundaries between planes are thin, it's incredibly bad luck that they ran into one."
"Or maybe Sangoro's Bulkhead was attacked by Xill, and this one managed to stow away just as the Scholar made a run for it."
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Akkedis looks at his sidearm and then to Ears while letting out a low, impressed hiss. "That was a very well done Ears." He nods to the whole team, "Excellent job all around, spotting the ambush and laying down fire."
Akkedis nudges the creature with his boot, "With luck the only threat left is the spirit creature."
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Kato, in his search, notices the unexploded kasatha still wears a scarf. Most of their kind do, so it may be good to take back along with the crew's other effects. Another good thing to bring back: The ship's data! Stored across several different terminals and logs, it can be easily taken into a datapad. For the moment, however, it remains unreadable. Advanced encryption and damage to its containers may stall the process. Historia-7 and her helpers shouldn't have too much trouble with it, though.
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"Oh. Oh wow, that was an excellent shot. It is a good thing that I told you to fire on him. Yes, indeed, Mustachio Marino, once again giving the proper orders and saving the day! Now, let us see what else we can find here."
Mustachio searches the bridge to see if there is anything besides the data stores.
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"We've got two, maybe three sections of ship left to sweep. We should clear it and confirm there's nothing else requiring return." Once everyone has completed their search of the cockpit and if there are no objections, Akkedis moves down the hall to next sealed door.
"Same as before? I'll knock and block the door, Oda and FR10R on fire support... Ears can you do, whatever that was, again if needed? Kato front lining with me. Captain keeping us focused? Hopefully we can finish this before the storm hits."
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Everyone gets into position. Sticking with what works, Akkedis kicks in the door. A ten-foot-wide communal shower stands along the south side of this room. A rack of towels rests within reach, while a trio of sinks and toilet stalls covers the rest.
It's not particularly remarkable, save properties meant to ease things for those with four arms. Hey, it doesn't need to be extravagant; everyone should wash their hands from time to time.
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Ears will copy the data and suggests that anyone else with a datapad does likewise for redundancy. He'll also take the scarf if no one else does.
After taking care of the data, Ears follows the vesk and prepares to supercharge his weapon a second time. The preparations are apparently for naught. He glances into the bathroom and tilts his head.
When he turns away, he starts counting. "The android got spaced, two in the mess hall, one on the bridge. That's four crew members ..."
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Kato is ready to shoot at the first hostile thing he sees. When nothing pops out he walks into the room and begins to look around. He looks in the cabinets and drawers. He turns on the water, "Burning Stars! Why is there blood coming out of taps?"
Kato will then try to figure out where the water reclamation unit would be on this ship.
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Ears hands FR10R his semi-auto pistol. "If I have to use this we're all lost anyway."
***
"Spontaneous flow of blood is often reported in haunted sites. The way these poor sods died, I wouldn't wonder if they laid uneasy in death."
Ears follows Kato a few steps, than asks, "What are you doing now, Kato? We've got the data we came for. The only thing left is to find the captain."
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Ears is probably right that such things have happened. But after getting over his shock, Kato determines otherwise in this case. The fluid recycling system (which is likely under the engine room or lavatory) is just having trouble processing. The attack on the mess hall left a fair bit of blood in the sink, and the damaged systems put it it rotation with the water. The kasathas had more pressing matters to attend to than their water supply.
But so do you! No need to fix the taps when the Struggle's Scholar will be space dust soon. You head over to the captain's quarters and use the key card, and are once again greeted by an unpleasant sight.
The signs of struggle are visible throughout this room. A single bed in the northwest corner of the chamber is torn, with its comforter halfway on the floor. A nearby bed table and desk are in similar disarray, covered with shattered glass and hunks of broken ceramics. A pool of blood covers the southern floor, adjacent to the chamber’s sole entry point. A battered suit of power armor is slumped against the wall. A lifeless kasatha can almost be seen behind its many panels and the dim purple force field it projects. The suit is attached to a cable connecting to another starship battery.
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"Looks like we found Yotto. The young Kasatha who died when the Scholar was damaged and rose again as some kind of ethereal creature. I don't know if it can attack through that suit, but according to the records we found, it took the whole crew to subdue her and place here there. They were not able to defeat here."
Kato will draw the force baton and walk carefully over to check on the suit and the batteries which are powering the forcefield.
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Akkedis moves warily into the cabin. "There may be other information here as well, such as the captain's log. It could have more than just the ships database." He gives the corpse on the floor a pitying look, "This captain died with great honor, sacrificing himself for his crew. He deserves peace and passage rites of his people."
Readying the baton and his sidearm, "We can search the room after laying both souls to rest. Other than the batons, do we know what may injure this creature?"
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"Energy attacks will affect it, but not at full strength. Put me behind a good shooter with a laser or a shock pistol and we still might be able to hurt it."
An incorporeal creature doesn’t have a physical body. It is
immune to all nonmagical kinetic attacks. All energy attacks
and magical kinetic attacks deal half damage (50%) to it. An
incorporeal creature takes full damage from other incorporeal
creatures and effects, as well as from all force effects. Corporeal
spells and effects that do not cause damage have only a 50%
chance of affecting an incorporeal creature. An incorporeal
creature is immune to critical hits.