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Now that they're here, Twila-4's hopes are starting to rise, though it would be hard to tell from her expression. Will there be any survivors? Corpses? In what condition will they be?
She checks that her azimuth pistol is clear in its holster, then nods to indicate her readiness. Slipping to the front of the line, she drones: "I'll check it out first." Like a shadow, she slides forward to peer at the small panel.
Twila-4 activates the panel without difficulty, causing the airlock to close and the cabin to pressurize as the artificial gravity kicks in. As air fills the room, a blaring alarm can be heard, timed with the light. After 30 seconds, the alarm and light stop flashing, and Twila-4 can use the panel again to open the interior door. Shortly after the alarm stops, however, a new sound takes its place.
EEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH
A gut-wrenching, horrifying screech echoes through the derelict ship, fading away just as the internal door slides partially open. When you force your way through the under-powered sliding door, a gruesome sight awaits you:
A trail of blood runs across the floor of the ten-foot wide hallway that cuts horizontally across the ship; at each end of this hall are metal access doors on opposite sides of the hall. A shorter hall in front of the door you came through has two doors halfway up exiting to the left and right. Finally, a large airlock seal covers the center of the far wall. A double-barreled weapon turret limply hangs from the ceiling, just next to the southern airlock door.
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"Kyaahhh..! The hell was that!? Now I'm sure of it, this ship isn't safe! Not at all!" Squealled the technomancer upon hearing the baleful noise that resounds through the derelict, the trail of blood and gore didn't help either.
"That turret gives me a bad feeling... We should avoid to stand in front of it... Mmm... But I kinda want to check it out." Said Mel before trying to approach the turret without standing in front of it.
"Hey Weylin can you help me out here? I think we should disarm or at least make sure this thing is not going to fire at us." Requested the human hoping to be capable of removing a possible hazard.
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"It is assuredly not safe," Sturmvanger says sardonically. "They wouldn't need us if it was."
"Change in plans. We're checking the room at the end of the bloodtrail first. The one with power. We'll go counterclockwise from there."
The Dragonkin heads for the door he's indicated but waits until everyone else is ready before trying to open it.
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Though the initial evaluation reveals that the turret hanging from its mount is no longer functional, a bit of searching reveals a second turret retracted into the ceiling; if power is diverted through the cabin, it may activate and fire at "intruders." A successful DC 16 Engineering check can completely separate the turret from its tracking sensor, rendering it harmless.
As Weylin and Mel investigate the turret, Sturmvanger and Laanok make their way to the starboard side of the hallway. The room with the power signature is locked; a slot of a keycard flashes red every time they try to slide the door open.
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With Weylin and Mel investigating the turret, Twila-4 follows the blood trail. The siren song of possible imminent death draws her forward. And then the door is locked. Crap. It'd be so easy to hack that if I had a computer. Being broke sucks! She begins to search the hall for the keycard, but has no hope of finding it.
Once she's worked her way to Mel and Weylin, she casually inquires: "Anyone got a computer on them? We need to hack the lock on that door."
Pellet was following and hovered up near the ceiling turning on the recorder to record about 30 seconds of the entry
Weylin and Mel attempt to disarm the turret, but the entire cabin rocks slightly as the emergency lights flicker - likely some energy disturbance from the storm baring down on you. The disruption in energy currents prevents Weylin from successfully disconnecting the motion tracker, and sure enough the turret begins to follow anyone walking through the hall. It hasn't fired yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Sam-12 determines that the shriek likely arose from the starboard side of the ship (where you are currently searching), but cannot specifically pinpoint its origin.
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Twila-4 glances up as the ship shifts. That can't be good. A hit of urgency seeps into her normally dull voice as she pulls out a piece of equipment from her pack and hands it to Mel. "Mel, go hack into that door. If that doesn't work, have Sturmvanger use this crowbar. Weylin and I can work on this turret until you guys need us." It'll be crowded in there anyway. She then fixes her attention on the motion sensor.
"Can we just stick something in front of its sensor? I've got some opaque soap in my pack we could cake on it. Geez. This thing." This time there's no mistaking the peevish sullenness in her tone.
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"If the turret can't be deactivated we may have to rush the bridge. Do what you can while we check in here. Here's hoping we don't unleash something out of this room at the same time the turret comes on line."
It's hard to tell, but there may be a grin on his face that suggests he partially hopes that having to deal with threats from two directions is exactly what he hopes will happen.
Twila-4 joins the ranks of those unable to bypass the turret's sensors. The device still doesn't have power diverted towards it, so it is unable to reactivate at this time; however, the cramped workspace means attempting to disable the turret again will take considerably more time.
Mel has a bit more luck with the keypad, using her datapad to bypass the keycard encryption. Unfortunately, she only hears the feeble whirring of gears within the wall; the door itself barely budges.
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Sturmvanger perks up and tenses up as he hears the familiar tones of a digital lock unlocking.
He just stares in disbelieving annoyance when it doesn't open. He growls out a few choice comments about the (unlikely) parentage of the door and slams a fist against it.
But, he's gotten control over himself only a moment later when he turns to the group.
"It seems like what this mission needs is more power. Let's check the next room. Maybe there's something useful there," he says before stalking off in that direction.
Sturmvanger perks up and tenses up as he hears the familiar tones of a digital lock unlocking.
He just stares in disbelieving annoyance when it doesn't open. He growls out a few choice comments about the (unlikely) parentage of the door and slams a fist against it.
But, he's gotten control over himself only a moment later when he turns to the group.
"It seems like what this mission needs is more power. Let's check the next room. Maybe there's something useful there," he says before stalking off in that direction.
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Thinking of sighing, Twila-4 drones: "Great. More power. Then this turret will power up and fire on us. We don't have time to disable it, with that storm coming. Just try to focus the power on the doors, not the guns, okay?" Hoping it'll buy them some time, she smears a thick coating of opaque soap over the lens of the motion sensor, thinking wryly: Maybe it'll shoot one less round at us. Woo. She then packs up her hygiene kit and following after the big guy.
Mel's technical know-how and Sturmvanger's interest in the ship's energy signatures lead them both to the same place: the engine room. Cracks mar the surface of this room’s western wall. A constant thrum of power is audible within the area, clearly emanating from an immense engine embedded into the northern wall. A standalone module sits opposite the only entrance to the room, but the thick cable that should connect it to the humming engine is irrevocably split.
The engine enclosure in the forward section of the room is missing its front panel, and a maze of crisscrossing wires connect to various terminals; Mel can determine that some catastrophe rendered the engine useless for travel, at which point the engineer on board patched what she could and diverted remaining power to the ship’s life support systems, some sort of containment module on the port side, and as many of the ship's internal doors as possible. However, several of these rerouted power strips are now inoperable, since the engine is slowly losing what power it still retains.
South of the control module, several dead, brick-sized starship batteries are stacked on metal shelves. A nearby power terminal had its cover removed, and a sketch in marker shows where these supplemental batteries were providing power. Mel knows enough about the ship layout to make sense of which cord provides power to which doors of the ship, though she would need additional batteries to power them back up. She's also skilled enough to realize that even an expert would not be able to successfully reverse-engineer the patched power cables from the engine in the time you have left before that storm reaches you; your best hope is to find some batteries squirreled away within the ship.
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Well, whoever screamed will be dead by the time we get in there. Sigh. So close, and yet so far. "Okay. Let's look for batteries. Who's coming with me to check the other end of that blood trail first? Let's get as much 'going through that hallway' done as possible before that turret gets enough power back to start shooting." She leaves the engine room and heads down the hall, moving quietly to avoid alerting any potential attackers, though it seems like they've barricaded themselves in the other room.
The door that Twila-4 approaches still has sufficient power; the door stutters a couple times, but eventually opens. Just inside the doorway, the entry floor is caked with blood, and several batons and shuriken are scattered throughout the room. A simple sparring mat covers much of the center floor. An alcove along the eastern edge houses a weapon rack filled several kinds of batons and a dozen fine shuriken. On the opposite wall is a pad of self-healing foam with colorful abstract targets painted on it. A four-armed metal robot stands in the southwestern corner of the chamber, its sensors flickering while they scan the room. A set of cables run from the back of the robot to a pair of large, brick-sized batteries installed in the back wall.
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There is more cursing from Sturmvanger as the complexity of the problem becomes apparent. "Nothing's ever easy," he mutters at the end.
He follows Twila but just ducks his head around the open doorway, spotting the training bot and scattered weapons and BATTERIES!
"An interesting selection of weapons. No firearms, no blades. Looks like you and Sam's kind of fighting, rather than mine," he comments to the android.
"Those batteries look promising. Think you can get them without that guy noticing? I'm betting he's still looking for a fight," he continues, nodding toward the sparring bot.
"Or should I just come in there and show him a different way of fighting?"
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"hey look, some batteries! We're lucky or perhaps someone left them here for some specific reason..? What..? Huh, sorry I was just daydreaming for a second, a sparing robot? Cute but I doubt I'll be useful to us right now." said the human as she takes a look at the room.
But didn't notice anything of interest besides the aforementioned robot.
Though Twila-4 remains hidden, Sturmvanger and Laanok draw the robot's attention. It springs to life, raising its four arms in a combat position and barking something in Kasathan.
As Laanok noted, a holoprojector is suspended above the training mat. It looks as though it was used to record sparring matches for later review. Once you deal with the robot, a successful DC 20 Computers or Engineering check will allow you to repair the projector enough to see what it last recorded.
aye aye skipper the drone say d on her sickly sweet voice. Hovering up next to the turret.
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Yes! Distract it. Perfect. As soon as the robot has engaged with Laanok, Twila-4 edges into the room, trying to stay in its blind spot(s), until she reaches the batteries. She gets a tiny rush from the challenge, and a tiny smirk plays at the corner of her lips. If necessary, she'll detach the batteries before beginning to lug them back out of the room, keeping an eye on the robot in case she needs to stop to defend herself.
As Laanok squares off against the robot, its arms stutter a few times while the lights in its eyes flicker. It lowers its arms and speaks again.
A few moments later, the entire robot powers down, leaving you free to explore the room uninterrupted. The battery connected to the robot is low on power, but the one next to it is still sufficiently charged.
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Whipping out her engineering kit, Twila-4 retrieves the battery and hands it to Mel . "You, Sam-12 and Sturmvanger can take this to the engine room. I'll help Weylin take a look at this holoprojector. Laanok can watch our backs." She doesn't have to know everything about that storm bearing down on them to realize that they've gotta hurry or it'll be trouble. Getting power to open the doors seems more important than fixing the holoprojector right now, honestly.
Within moments, Mel detaches the functional starship battery from the wall. During this time, Laanok searches the weapon rack and finds an Idaran force training baton (see below), 10 carbonedge shuriken, 8 tactical batons, 4 cestus battlegloves, and 2 serums of enhancement (commando).
Twila-4 and Weylin manage to patch together the holoprojector enough to play its last recording. In it, a kasatha backs into the room rapidly and rushes for the rack of weapons. She's pursued by a ghostly, translucent kasatha who enters just as she pulls a baton from the rack. While she turns to face it, it strikes at her from nearly 15 feet away. Somehow, even though its arms are far too short to span that distance, it rips a chunk from the living kasathan's abdomen; or maybe it would be more accurate to say a chunk erupts from her abdomen.
Another two crew members charge through the door and the translucent monster's ghostly claws get beaten back by the the kasathas' training batons. Somehow the crew get the better of it, and it flees between them toward the door where a figure in powered armor waits. The armored one falls back out of sight as the ghost rips and tears at the kasatha inside. As the two kasatha left in the room follow, one bangs its hand against the door and her baton falls to the floor.
The recording ends.
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Twila-4 pockets one of the serums and gives Laanok a half-lidded look. "Laanok. Give that force baton to Sam-12 for now. It won't do us any good in your backpack if that ghost attacks us. Now let's get this battery to the engine room before that storm gets here." The way she drones all her sentences, it sounds like she's so bored and unconnected to anything. Even so, she has a vested interest in coming out of her first mission alive and successful; her actions are all focused on the tasks necessary to achieve those goals.
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"Those batons things look handy but I prefer a small arm to put some distance between me and the targer... Why..? Hey! Do you think that the monster from the holo is still in the ship!? Holy Triune! We better get ready for it..." Said a nervous Mel as she saws the Hologram once more trying make out something of the creature that appear in it.
Mel's knowledge base is insufficient to identify the ghostly kasatha from the recording alone, though she may have more luck if she encounters it in person.
As you process what you've learned, the ship rocks again and the orange emergency lights flicker. You've still got a mission, and the clock is ticking.
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Sturmvanger watches the video with an unreadable expression.
There is only a faint narrowing of his eyes as the creature, if it can even be called that, cuts through armor like it isn't there to deliver rather gruesome deaths to it's victims.
"Twila's got the right plan. And now we know what happened to the crew. Back to the engine room."
Once there, he takes a look at the schematics. "Let's start with the green wire. I still want to know what's inside that room with the blood trail. And we need to open this other door before we can get to the bridge, anyway."
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"At any rate... Let's move on as Twila suggested but keep your weapons at hand in case we run into that monster, I wonder... If it's still here, isn't weird that we haven't run into it yet? Maybe it's waiting for us to get separated like in those old holo movies! Seriously... If you found a Longarm and it's covered in some slime... Don't touch it!" Suggested Mel trying to keep the party together and in high spirits despite being obviously scared.
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Sam-12 tests the heft of the baton as he follows Sturm back down the corridor. He decides it's wise to watch their backs back the way they originally came, where the blood trail leads to the stuck door. He hunkers down and looks around the corner, trying to remain unnoticed by anyone (or anything) watching from that direction.