Benedict moves up towards Angher and stops him making anything worse. He pulls out his datapad and secures some leads from the terminal to his datapad and starts to hack into the terminal and gain them access to the station.
The Flowerbed, Deep Space, Ankanju Ratri System
Wednesday 19-01-3200
23:04
Agnahr's attempts to pry open the airlock's control panel may have been well-meaning, but the second he tears off the infrared sensor along with several crackling wires he knows they may have been misguided. By the time Benedict has returned from the shuttle with the extra hardware needed to commandeer the entire station's security network, the airlock has switched to alternative power and completely disconnected itself from the main grid. The hacker works swiftly and manages to gain control of the blast doors leading into the Flowerbed, but he is unable to exert further electronic control; in fact, his digital foray into the station's security reveals that the main control room and the large crew staging lobby have been completely disconnected in their own right. Someone or something has taken pains to prevent any external tampering with either of these rooms, and Benedict knows that attempting to gain access to them directly will trigger some kind of alarm. The rest of the station seems safe to infiltrate electronically.
After the team have gathered inside the airlock and the heavy external blast doors have sealed shut, Benedict is able to begin pressurisation and finally gain access to the Flowerbed. Once inside, a quick check of your vacc-suit's environmental scanners tells you that the station's life support is indeed running optimally, and anyone that wishes to preserve their suit's power supply would find the atmosphere temperate and breathable, if slightly metallic; the spacers amongst you will feel right at home breathing the recycled air. After securing the entrance hall, Damian powers up the shuttle's scout drone and sends it deeper into the station, the rest of the party taking up defensive positions in the worrying silence, and it doesn't take long for him to spot something untoward. A dead pirate lies in the middle of the station walkway just around the first corner, and a trail of blood just outside the entrance hall leads inside a sealed door besides you. Before you investigate further you allow the drone to make a full pass of the station, and though most of the solid metasteel doors are sealed shut, two remain open; one by the dead body appears to be a large holding area of sorts, full of secure lock boxes and racking, and another to the northeast which appears to be a mess hall and kitchen. The blackened contents of a prep oven indicate that someone probably left here in a hurry. Other than the one body, there is no sign of anyone on the Flowerbed, dead or alive.
I didn't have portraits for everyone so I had to settle for generic fantasy elves and warriors to represent the party for now. I'd prefer using named tokens so if you haven't found any portrait art or don't care I'll have a dig myself. If you have any questions on the layout of the station, please ask away.
Damian hangs back uncomfortably, pointedly working with the drone controller as he declines to don a vacc suit.
He does his job, scouting the ship's hallways with the drone meticulously. He looks relieved as the others declare the atmosphere safe and only then hefts his duffel onto his shoulder and follows into the station.
"Pilfer... you said the main control room and the large crew staging lobby are sequestered and alarmed," he asks, piloting the drone to examine door labels, "...which rooms are those? My bet is that's where the answers are."
He glanced up from the controller. "Probably should check the room full of smeared blood first, though. Aghnar?"
Switching to station's air, the swordsman takes a moment to adjust his breathing pattern. He loosens the suit's fittings and frees himself up to draw his sword. He affirmatively nods at Damian's suggestion.
"Sure. Maybe you can send that drone to create a diversion at another door down the hall and then I can try to sneak in this door?"
Agnahr pads quietly to the blood trail to analyze how fresh it may be and to pick out any telling tracks or marks. He kneels and his brow furrows as he struggles to make sense of it. Perhaps the gravitics here disrupted it somehow, he guesses.
I'd like to have a vision of what we'll see/what will happen if we open the door that the blood trail goes through. This will count as 1 of my 2 Commit Efforts.
Odo's sixth sense grants him a vision of the possible future...
...the door slides open revealing a guardhouse of sorts, several seats and a desk placed inside, presumably to keep an eye on anyone arriving at the station. A clearly dead pirate lays in a large, congealed pool of blood near the back of the room, and a third is sat leaning against a wall in the far corner. A lazarus patch covers what seems to be a terrible wound on the man's shoulder, and you would take him for dead if it weren't for his shallow breathing causing faint movement. He doesn't seem to react to the door opening, and you cannot tell if he is conscious or not...
Vyrner raises a hand as Agnahr starts to disassemble the panel. "I don't think--". He pauses momentarily as the lights flicker and the power switches over. "--that's a good idea."
Once the sensors indicate "safe", the trader releases the catches on his mask and pulls off the helmet of his vacc suit. He looks around cautiously, wincing as his eyes fall on the blood trail.
As Damien points out the smears leading up to the closed door, his eyes go unfocused for a moment and he sways slightly on his feet. He heaves a deep breath as his eyes come back into focus, meeting Agnahr's.
"There's someone alive in there. Wounded, but alive. We're not alone."
"If he's alive, he may be able to tell us what happened here." Benedict heads over to the terminal pad next to the guard house door and attempts to open it.
Damian floats the drone dutifully down to the corner, hovering over the dead body and watching the adjacent hall. It is ready in case distraction is desired.
As Odo makes his statement about what lies beyond the locked door, Damian holds his breath. He watches the other group members to see how they respond to this his non-emperical observation...
The Flowerbed, Deep Space, Ankanju Ratri System
Wednesday 19-01-3200
23:13
Making his way to the guard-post, Benedict jacks his compad into the door's access panel and swiftly deactivates its maglock. As before, this room is not part of the selected closed network and his tampering doesn't seem to draw any attention at all. With a final tap of his finger, the door slides open with a smooth motion and the stench of death, already strong from the decomposing body of the pirate in the hallway, rushes out to assault your five senses at once; anyone not conditioned to such situations would be glad of their vacc-suit's internal oxygen supplies.
The situation inside the room is much as Odo's vision described, a second corpse and the apparent source of the blood trail strewn towards the far end of the room, unmistakeably dead, and the shallow-breathing figure of a dishevelled man near death himself. He wears a thick coat too large for him, open to reveal a shirt bearing a red ray-printed skull, the irreverently droll symbol of the League of Free Peoples. Approaching the man cautiously would reveal a second lazarus patch lying on the floor next to him, as well as the blood-stained one clamped to his chest near the right shoulder. As Odo foresaw he seems to be barely on the edge of consciousness, his shallow raspy breathing barely audible above the soft hum of the station's power supply, and he makes no sign of acknowledging your presence. You don't have to be a doctor to tell that he's been here for some time, and that without some brisk intervention on your part he will likely die in short order.
I've marked the two rooms whose doors are alarmed.
Damian sees nothing as the pair open the guard-house door, so a distraction is unnecessary, and Benedict can now open any locked door other than the alarmed ones without a skill check, seeing as they all run off the same sequence.
Not really being comfortable with removing his helmet just yet, Silas does it anyway to more easily keep a look on his surroundings.
The foul fumes of decay hit him at once, but he'd seen worse during his service. Still, he grimaces. "That kid doesn't look too well. Does... *cough* ...does anyone have any medical skills? I'm afraid I won't be much use here."
He moves towards the corner currently occupied by Damian, which offers a good vantage point to keep watch from. "I'll keep an eye out for any unwanted company. You guys do your magic." He glances at Odo suspiciously as he leaves.
Agnahr's father had taught his sons how to trap animals but encouraged hunting instead. Agnahr's often malicious brother Hasoki, spent two seasons trapping. Often Agnahr would come across his brother's traps closed on struggling prey too young to keep. Something turns inside of him and he finds his hands in unwilled motion, sword set aside. He remembers the many trapped animals clearly now as he regards the wounded League member. Some, he saved. Most were left to Hasoki's curiosity.
With no lack of compassion, he gingerly removes the blood soaked lazarus patch and applies the nearby fresh replacement to the unstable pirate.
The Flowerbed, Deep Space, Ankanju Ratri System
Wednesday 19-01-3200
23:19
Despite how he learned it, The Sarokoulan's first aid comes off as highly professional; the lazarus patch's operation light turns green indicating a successful application, and as the stims and hydration solutions rush into the wounded man's system his condition visibly improves. Opening his eyes for the first time since you arrived, he groggily takes you all in until his eyes fall on the corpse beside him. A look of anguished terror overtakes him, and he thumps the floor weakly with his fist. "Goddamn it... Flint... should have... been me..." Returning his dazed focus back to Agnahr, the man makes a pathetic attempt to stand but barely makes it an inch off the floor before slumping back down. "You here... to loot... us..? Take.. it all... I'm... a dead man... anyway..." He spits out a short bark of laughter that swiftly turns into a hacking cough, which in turn causes him to yelp in pain and clutch at his wounded right shoulder. "Captain... don't take kindly... to failures... like me..."
After a few seconds without him taking a lasbolt to the head, his assessment of the situation seems to shift. He looks around at you all one more time before continuing his monologue. "Or are you... here for that... fucking egg..? Piece of shit... murdering... machine..."
Odo squats down next to the wounded man. "Oh, I suspect you'll live a while longer. My friend Agnahr here could have been a trauma surgeon if circumstances had been a bit different, I'll warrant." He turns to the barbarian. "You are a man of surprising talents."
He sighs and looks around the room, his gaze lingering on the man's dead compatriot. He starts to take a deep breath and appears to think better of it. He pats the man on the shoulder and starts when the man flinches. "Oh! I'm so sorry, that's--"; his hand wavers, and he awkwardly air-pats the man's shoulder instead. "But you'll live. Hopefully.
What happened here? What's this about an egg?"
For clarification, the drone is at the corner. Damian is at the bloodied doorway.
Damian Stavros (HP: 1/1, AC: 14)
Seeing the man begin to rouse and no action around the corner on his vid screen, Damian lets the drone hover and turns his attention to the wounded man. He stares at the man dispassionately, seeing something the others don't, whispering to himself as he works out the formulae. Affecting the mind of a man near death should be exceedingly simple; he channels the psychic compulsion to his fingertips.
He puts on a smile and steps forward to join the others in the room, offering the Droid controller to Silas as he passes. He bends down next to Odo and puts his hand compassionately on the man's shoulder. "Tell us everything," he says in a kind tone. Everything. No lies. No ommissions... niggles the compulsion that works its way to the man's mind...
Imprinted Whim Charges caster's skin with a parasitic psychic pattern, a charge that remains as long as Deep Focus is maintained. If they can touch another intelligence creature, implants a single minor impulse or desire (a sentence or two). Target makes a Mental save, otherwise carries out the impulse for scene.
Looks like the roll is for the Save, not the spell?
The Flowerbed, Deep Space, Ankanju Ratri System
Wednesday 19-01-3200
23:20
The young man, who introduces himself as Skunk, appears to consider the situation for a brief moment before a resigned grin crosses his face. His voice is regaining some strength as the patch's drugs do their thing, though it still sounds weak, immature even. Now that you have a closer look at him in comparatively better health, you doubt he's older than twenty standard years. "Don't much matter now... I guess..." He nods to Damian before continuing. "All started about a week ago... Sig picked something up on the scanners... so Gack and Harvey went out to have a look and came back with this... shiny egg. Made of some weird metal... never seen nothing like that before... neither had the rest of the lads, or the Captain for that matter... Thought we might flog it for a decent chunk of cred back planet-side... so we chucked it in the holding racks waiting for the next shipment..." He takes a deep breath, then winces in pain again. "Then it all went to shit..."
"Few days ago, early hours of the morning... not like that matters out here much... me, Flint and Vinny was in here, us being security and all... we heard a weird banging from the holding room... Vinny went out to check what it was, and then... and then we heard a thump... Turned out it was him hitting the floor, but we didn't know that then... Flint and me went out to see what happened, turned the corner... that's when we got blasted by it... that robot. Must have been in the egg... or something... Flint dragged me in here... I remember that much... saved my fucking life..." The look of anguish returns to the boy's face and he nearly starts sobbing, then he shakes his head. "He was always like that, ever since we... was kids. What the fuck am I gonna do... without him, eh?"
He takes another deep breath and composes himself. "Anyway... after that it's all a bit... blurry. Dunno how long I was out for, kept... blacking out. The alarm went off... the one that means there's a hole in the station and we're all gonna die unless you... get a suit on. Heard lots of running and shouting... probably the lads going to suit up... But then it stopped. False alarm, I dunno... I'm still breathing, so guess that must be it... Ain't nobody been in here that I know of though... since then. Know I ain't popular here... just tagged along 'cause of Flint... but don't think they'd let me... bleed out like this..." He laughs darkly, once again causing him to wince in pain. "Captain is too efficient to have bodies on her station... would be a bolt to the head then a trip out the airlock... Fucking bitch..." Contrary his words, you sense a vague sense of awe and respect for this 'Captain' in his tone.
"So that's about it... I should be dead, but I ain't, and Flint... should still be here, and he ain't... plus nobody's been here until... you arrived. I'd say it's all fucked..."
He failed his mental save and the Haze roll was greater than 1. Poor Skunk isn't in the right frame of mind to resist your compulsions.
He raises his eyebrows in surprise. Firstly amazed by Odo's prescience, he is next startled by Stavros with his strange ability to plant compulsion. The crews that Agnahr has worked with in the past rarely had members with psychic ability. Now, here are two! Kal must really be concerned to put this kind of unusual talent together.
"Okay Skunk, take it easy. It'll be all right. You are with us now, until we find your Captain and she tells you different... Nina Rose, yeah? Let's see if the other half of your crew is still around." Rising with his sword recovered, Agnahr slaps the flat of his blade against the sole of the pirate recruit's boot as a half-assed knighting. He looks to P1LF3R and Silas to see if the hall is still secure.
Marullus wrote:He bends down next to Odo and puts his hand compassionately on the man's shoulder. "Tell us everything," he says in a kind tone.
Just to be clear, Damian's attempt was to be inconspicuous. He prepped in the hallway and delivered with just a comforting hand. Everyone is free to be suspicious or not... Just clarifying it was meant to be clandestine.
Damian averts his eyes from Aghnar's uncomfortable scrutiny. Should have expected one so primitive to be superstitious, he chastised himself inwardly.
"So, robot turned itself on and led a coup of the station," he turns, saying to the others. "We can check for any other survivors counterclockwise around the corridor while Pilfer reconnoiters the security on the two rooms the robot sealed off, yeah?"
He rises from his crouch, comfortable that Skunk has said all he has to say, and if Silas hasn't done anything with the Droid controller offers to take it back.
"FUBAR'ed from what I heard. Sounds like a piece of debris turned out to be an assassin droid. If I can get to a networked terminal, I can see if it has attempted a connection of its own but I don't want to get close enough to it to try and tag it myself."
