I'm sad to see any game end, but yeah, I agree. This has seemed to run its course.
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Mascot checks his rifle and then his sword, preparing to move out. He nods to Drifter, then to Spider. "Aandiru, are you coming with us?"
Mascot cycles through the cameras views that they have from the bridge, trying to find a place where sounds would be easily heard from other areas of the ship. "What about trying to play it in multiple different staterooms? That's a maze of an area there." He tries to see if he can access audio and video in the staterooms.
Mascot squints at the monitor and jabs a finger at it. "Uh, looks to me like there was definitely some activity there. That's an alcohol still set up outside the medlab. I doubt that's standard unless they really got hard up for antiseptic cleaner. More likely someone's in there making moonshine."
Mascot shakes his head. "Might be best to just get out." He points to Aandiruu. "If the RC wants to scold us for not salvaging the ship, we got a living, breathing life support tech. With the reactor dying, there's not much to do other than try and wake up the others and they'll become food for those things as soon as we do." "I think we get back to the ship and get going. Of course, we didn't make any repairs..."
"Virus. It's called Virus. And it destroyed ships, stations, cities, even planets. The Rebellion didn't even get settled because it came around and just killed everyone. This ship....think of this ship, every system on it, every hatch -- anything with power and a data connection -- all trying to kill you. You said you're a life support tech? Think about how that might go. Now think of the planets and cities you remember." Mascot just lets that sink in for a bit. Then he turns on the reactor monitor. "The reactor is running dry. Even if we kill all those...things... out there this ship is dead. I guess thousands of years was a good run for it. But it got s%&*ty mileage." "Ages? How long have you been away and running from those things? How have you been surviving?"
Wow, only 80 years? I guess I forgot that our team was essentially created right after the RC formed, but still that seems super short for being in a 'rebuilding civilization' phase. I mean, Virus essentially ended most of the life in known space and simply severed most connections between worlds and technology, right? And it's still around killing people. 80 years sounds super short for even Star Vikings to be venturing out there. Or maybe I need to re-orient my thinking of our situation. Vikings might be a bit generous. We're random raiders who just have enough for a sword and shield after the fall of the Roman Empire. The RC is like 5 villages who decided to band together and told some kids to go and take things from even smaller villages who are already starving to death.
"You want off this ship? You need to start talking. Who are you and what happened here? Is anyone else here?" He waves at the pointed stick. "And how about you put that down for the moment."
"Run now, Scold later!" Mascot grabs her arm and pulls her into the bridge. Once beyond the opening, he turns to lay down suppressive fire.
Mascot grabs the woman by the collar, trying to help her up as they sprint out of the area. "What are those things?!" he yells to her. As they pass Drifter, he looks for a place to provide cover fire for the others to retreat toward.
Mascot sees the humanoid running at them at a full sprint. He crouches down to the floor and thrusts his leg out across the doorway, hoping the creature is too focused on getting to them to notice the trip hazard.
Mascot readies his static sword and puts himself opposite Flatfoot, near the door, ready to ambush whoever is coming.
"Well, it was too much to hope for a fully stocked armory. Let's see what we can pull up from here, though." Mascot examines the security functions.
Mascot views the wreckage of the common area. "This whole ship looks like a battle raged up and down the length. But the crew is still asleep for the most part. There was just a few that woke up, right? So someone boarded them and slaughtered them and they fought the whole length of the ship? Something seems off..." "Let's check the armory and security office. It's likely destroyed too, but you never know. And if someone did come aboard, I would expect the crew would be trying to get there." Mascot takes another look back at the common area, then moves to the armory.
Mascot quickly moves up to the edge of the open common space, trying to spot the figure. He keeps the wall to one side in case he needs to use it as cover. "Did any of you catch what it was? There's no way an unaugmented human could have survived this long, right? What if it was in cryo-sleep and woke up alone on the ship?" He scans the open area with a flashlight.
Mascot sniffs. "Unless one of you has been hitting the body spray a bit hard, I think we have something not quite human that's been through here." He glances left and right. "Medbay to the right. Armory and Security office to the left. Both would be nice to search before heading to the reactor."
"Probably a good idea to see if there are any supplies in there too." Mascot nods. "Ok, aft hatch, then."
Mascot lets his rifle hang from his tac vest and draws his static sword. "Ok, let's do this. I have point." He checks the ship's diagram to plan their route and prepares to exit the bridge.
"So how do we do this? Scout in force? Leave someone here to maintain comms and control? Sounds like we might need to get to the engine room to see the state of the reactor." Mascot double checks his weapons, knowing that whatever happens, he wants then ready to go.
Mascot points at the screen that displayed the Acting Captain's log. "Don't forget that they had a mystery of their own. They thought they either woke up a little more than a week after they left, but the ship looked like it had been running for 2000 years." He shrugs. "Maybe we don't care anymore, but if something weird happened to this ship, it might be a factor."
Mascot jabs a finger at the reactor reading. "Uh, I'm no engineer, but I think that's a bad sign." He glances at the list of people on the ship in cryosleep. "This...this seems like who you might choose if you planned to colonize a new planet. Maybe a last-ditch shot to save a faction by resettling a new system? Or a hare-brained scheme to expand their power base. But it wouldn't be a fast plan. Are these people still alive?"
"Got it." Mascot moves to check for any other exits to the bridge, then he double checks the way they came in, trying to see if he can re-lock the door using the key.
"Damn, that sounds bad. Cryosleep? Is it possible that there's still people down there alive?" He tries to pull up a ship's roster to see who Shulmaali was.
Mascot laughs. "Keep thinking like that, Spider, and they'll even give you your own team." He draws his sword and heads into the bridge. He checks the area before nodding and sheathing the sword. "Well, no sign of destruction here." He moves to the sensor station to see if he can bring up any internal or external sensors.
Mascot examines the door. "Going to be a tough one to break." He looks for any signs that someone else might have gone through recently.
Mascot lets the disk fall without watching it, knowing the threat remains at the door. He follows Drifter through the hatch, moving forward while the other man remains at the hatch.
Mascot looks for the hatch mechanism. He also presses his shoulder gently against it to see if there's any movement.
"Well, at least it's not Virus. Let's go after it." Mascot sheathes his static sword and begins climbing up to the upper hatch.
"Uh, Sandman, how many decks between us and the command bridge?" Mascot inspects the damage to the door. "This is starting to look less like an individual gone crazy and more of a battle onboard." The former marine tries to see what type of weapon might have caused this and whether this may have been a tactical point.
"While engineering might show up if there are any active areas of the ship, the command bridge might tell us more about what happened. If there's any logs, they could be there. I agree that we should start there." Mascot nods at Drifter.
Mascot sighs and glances at the corpse. "Well, you did a good job scuttling the ship, sir." He jerks his head up. "Or, he was trying to kill Virus...?" He backs away from the systems, tucking the slug pistol away.
"Well it's been known to go dormant to seem like a non-infected system." He looks at the corpse. "But I agree with Flatfoot. I'm betting this someone slowly driven insane by holding this position with no other contact. Poor bastard." He picks up the slug pistol and checks it, clearing it to look for any malfunctions, then returning it to working order if it seems functional. Mascot moves to one of the bridge consoles. "Any of these still functioning? Maybe they just shot the screens?"
Mascot glances around and then heads towards the ops bridge. He grips his static sword tightly.
Mascot moves with Drifter to find and cover any door to the interior of the ship. He checks to see if it's closed and locked. Then he begins looking for any access to maintenance shafts. "Or some left over toxin. Probably years old."
Mascot prepares his armor and rifle. Then he draws his boarding sword. "Let's be careful shooting holes in this thing. No power means no emergency bulkheads. Not even sure if there's atmosphere in there to lose." He sets himseulf up to be the first one in.
Mascot remains alert for any power signatures in the ship's weapons or engines as they close in.
"Powerplant is cold. They're not going to be targeting us or powering up weapons any time soon." Mascot adjusts the sensors. "Sandman, If one of the ships inside Endeavor was powered up, could we detect it from outside? Could they detect our approach without using Endeavor itself?" The former marine checks the screen again. "I say we go take a look."
Mascot tunes the sensors to look for any signs of activity, particularly signs that the ship still has an intact atmosphere.
"Only one way to find out. Let's get closer and see if we can raise them. Or get any reaction if there's still a crew on that ship."
Mascot activates the sensors, getting an assessment of the Deepnight Endeavour.
"Sandman, if we use the key, we'd have to send an omni-directional broadcast, right? I mean, we don't know where Deepnight Endeavor is, right? If we do that, would other ships be able to locate us? Even if they can't decode the message?"
Mascot nods. "Sounds good to me. Ain't nothing much here but a ton of broken dreams." "Let's see what's on that data chip."
Mascot takes the officer's sidearm. "Maybe we can trade it." He looks back down the hall. "Might as well check out the administrative offices while we're here though."
Mascot motions to the others. "Six bodies. This one is from the ship. The others are miners, likely." He kneels down to check the Deepnight Endeavor crewmember for any items.
Mascot doesn't acknowledge the signal, but bounds efficiently in the low gravity towards the machine shop entrance. He shines his light ahead, but does not pause at the threshold to the room in case someone inside wants to bottle them up there. He pushes off a wall to send himself inside the room at an oblique angle.
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