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Nip flexes her shoulder and winces a bit, then turns just in time to see green take a swipe at Sovellis. The lime green haze reappears around her hand just before a nearby rock lifts from the ground.
“NO! Bad kitty!!”
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Raises an eyebrow at Nip’s “weird, creepy kitty thing” comment.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nip catches Grimalki’s raised eyebrow and blushes.
“I didn’t mean you! I meant… oh, you know what I meant.” She lightly punches Grimalki’s shoulder.
A friendly smirk craws up her face.
“You aren’t creepy at all.” She sticks out her tongue and giggles.
Nip turns to the dead creatures.
“Now let’s take a look at these… creatures. They look like living quilts. Can anyone make sense of this? Understanding dead things isn’t my strong suit.”
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Salamazarin takes a couple deep, calming breaths after the last creature falls. She stows her baton, but keeps her pistol in hand, and remains visibly tense and alert for a while afterward.
"Mine neither," she replies to Nippostia, as she crouches to examine the nearest dead beast. "But they certainly don't look natural. More like something out of a mad scientist story?" She begins looking around for tracks, to see if can determine where the thing came from.
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Nip’s eyes suddenly go wide and she hurriedly pulls out her data pad.
“Hey … hold on a sec, everybody. In all the excitement, I forgot to show you this."
She pokes at her data pad, reorients it so the taped side is up, then pokes more. She finally smiles.
”Here it is! When we were wrapping up the search of Nindir’s room, I gave it one last peek after everybody left. Remember that book with the flowers? There was a picture hidden inside the cover. This.”
She holds the data pad up for everyone. It shows an image of the book’s inside front cover, with a lightly glued panel pulled back.
The space behind the panel holds a printout image of a young male kasatha wearing a blue embroidered facecloth. A camera filter has been applied to make his eyes look darker and add pink sparkling hearts around his face. The print-out is labeled “Rahosa,” with a hand-drawn heart. It’s a picture of Rahosa Hyeldus Tin Zerum, a resident of the Red Corridors.
“Our girl has a boy that mom and dad don’t know about. Think that could be the mysterious person the neighbors talked about? It’s a definite link to the Red Corridors.”
As she waves the data pad around, another bolt of pain shoots through her shoulder. She winces and rubs it again.
“I’m with you, Switch. Let’s take a few minutes. My shoulder is killing me.”
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While resting Pockets has time to open the mk 1 null-space chamber he found right before the attack. Not finding any cheese Pockets passes the rest of the contents to the team, then goes back to resting.
Inside is a laminated badge with Nindir’s picture and name, which identifies her as a market exhibitor; a university acceptance letter addressed to Rahosa; and a pair of simple metal wedding bands in a hand-sewn pouch.
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Engineering isn't any help but Life Science is, and it is obvious that these creatures have been experimented on. There are tags embedded in their hind legs.
to reveal a tunnel leading underground.
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Raises an eyebrow at Nip’s “weird, creepy kitty thing” comment.Out of the corner of her eye, Nip catches Grimalki’s raised eyebrow and blushes.
“I didn’t mean you! I meant… oh, you know what I meant.” She lightly punches Grimalki’s shoulder.
A friendly smirk craws up her face.
“You aren’t creepy at all.” She sticks out her tongue and giggles.
She chuckles. "I figured, but thanks."
"Sad to say I'm not a biologist either. Maybe there's something written on the tags that'll tell us where they're from?"
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn[-
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Mazer scowls at the tunnel. "Yeah, I see it, Pockets. If these things came from there, there might be more of 'em. But I think we need to check it out, in case this has anything to do with Nindir and Rahosa." She shines the flashlight from her comm unit into the tunnel to judge how awkward going underground will be for her.
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Nip brushes the grass back and forth with her hand as she rests, loving the feel of it. She abruptly stops and tilts her head. “Hello… what are you?”
She crawls a couple of feet to a nearby bush and reaches under it.
“More weirdness… this was under the bush.”
She holds out a shattered syringe of the type made to be fired from a needler weapon.
“Sounds like someone wants to hide their evil laboratory. Shall we visit?”
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When you explore you discover that this underground facility is a concrete and steel structure with dim lighting and 20-foot-high ceilings. Three square airlocked specimen cells branch off the main structure to the north, south, and west; these have adamantine alloy walls and doors. Surveillance cameras are in every room and corridor intersection.
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Grimalki's fur stands on end at the sudden rapid shots.
"Did I get it? See Nixxer understands. One of those things tried to eat me, and its tracks lead to there, I'd feel safer if we threw in a dozen, Mk 8 Frag Grenades first."
"There's some kind of lab in there, right? We don't know what they have in there. For all we know, that'd just contaminate the rest of the ship with poisonous chemicals or radiation or who knows what." She shudders, more familiar with the prospect than would be expected. "Besides, we're already on camera. We don't wanna draw more attention to ourselves."
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Nippostia watches the ysoki circus for a few moments in stunned silence, then comes back to her senses.
She stomps over to Nixxer and glares at him.
“No, Nixxer! Stop! We don’t know what’s going on with this facility. Let’s not just destroy stuff for fun. OR STEAL IT.”
She draws her laser pistol and checks the hilt of her knife.
“We carefully explore, right? Carefully and quietly. No more shooting first.”
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Salamazarin does not seem inclined to help the ysoki dismantle the place, despite bring able to just reach the ceiling by herself. She gives Nippostia a grateful look when the gnome urges caution, too.
"There's significantly more head room down here than I was expecting," the sarcesian muses quietly, looking around from her full height. "That makes me a little nervous about who or what needs this much space." Wary of security measures, she takes a careful look at the doors.
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Sovellis listens to the ebb and flow of the exchange between Nippostia and the larcenous ysoki. The sarcesian is right about the headroom, although the corner cells are small.
Sovellis sheds his pack and stations himself beside Pockets in front of the door. After a moment's thought he languidly draws his sword, but he holds it casually, almost like a walking stick.
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Switch gets the door open.
Opening the door to the complex unleashes a wave of cool, conditioned air. Sterile metallic and concrete structures form a corridor leading past intersections of bunker doors and toward some kind of electronic hub or workstation. Overhead, long fluorescent tubes shine with light as bright as the artificial sun outside, but cold as the metal tiles underfoot.
All tracks stop abruptly. Tiny cleaning drones scuttle across the floor, keeping it spotless.
In the center of the ceiling is a laser turret, aimed at the entrance. It takes a shot at a random person.
Switch is the target ((in alphabetical order)) and takes a hit. (2 fire)
Engineering or Computers to disable.
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As Nixxer works on disabling the laser turret Pockets provide covering fire while yelling
"Safety first!"
1: laser turret, 2: cleaning drone, 3: Floor, 4: ceiling.
After things quiet down Pockets realizes he's been hit
"Ouch, I'm going to have to get a new safety vest soon if this keeps up."
Pockets tares off one of the velcro pockets on his safety vest and reattaches it over the burn hole.
"Good as new!"
Then Pockets looks around to see what else might need to be made safe.
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”And I got yelled at for tinkerin' with the cameras!”
“I didn’t yell. I… offered… supportive correction. Because…”
Nip sighs and walks to where Nixxer is sorting components. She nudges a singed circuit board with her boot.
“Is this useful? It’s less burned than everything else.”
When Nixxer stands, she smiles and touches his arm, nodding her head toward the next door.
“C’mon... let's see what you can salvage in there. Maybe we can find our girl.”
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The next room is some sort of storage area. Boxes and crates are stacked along the northeastern wall. Some of the containers are open, exposing the contents inside. Prepackaged food wrappers lie discarded on the floor nearby. The hiss of the air conditioner is audible through a ceiling vent
to the northwest.
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Pockets investigate the food wrappers and containers
"I knew it, just like I thought the missing people have something to do with food. I was hoping for a mission with Dragon Treasure, but finding food is just as good."
Pockets pauses a minute thinking about it.
But a mission with food and treasure that's a mission I'm dreaming of!"