1.2 - A Bo-Right Good Time (Closed)

[Emmettmcglynn]

"It certainly was, in its heyday. Back then," He paused suddenly as Urien reported the capture of the Vargr on board. If his theory was right, that was likely the captain of the Misery's Company deposed in a mutiny after the botched aftermath of the Torpol raid. Holding up a finger to the Borites to indicate he needed a moment, and turned in his chair to visually break the conversation with them. "Good work Urien. Keep him as he is until the away team returns, then we'll make landfall."

"Apologies," he says as he turns back to the passengers. "Our sensor tech just reported that the source of the distress beacon has arrived on ship. We'll beleaving shortly. As I was saying, back then Old Sindal ruled some two dozen worlds and even more smaller settlements and outposts. Borite is just a single jump away from one of their founding worlds, actually, though during the Age of Revolution it was bombed back to the stone age. This ship, the Harrier class, was one of their designs from back then, and it's one of the most advanced in the Trojan Reach because of it. For all intents and purposes, it is to an Oghman vessel what an Oghman is to your defenses." Mahan says with a smile, pleased to have a chance to speak about his people's history. "Very few planets survived their fall with the prosperity they brought, sadly. Most of their scientific knowledge was lost to history, with only one world in the region being able to maintain or operate the kind of technology on that station. I can say with some pride that that planet is my home, Drinax, where our scholars work day and night to maintain some of the most advanced hardware in this part of the galaxy."

He was exaggerating, but only somewhat. It was probably better to leave the state of the Kingdom in the modern day unsaid, at least until first impressions were completed, but for now he could lay on the drama. And, most importantly, leave the implication that Drinax could repair the station and defend the planet hanging in the air.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Emmettmcglynn (see edit history)

[Niraverine]

Considering their grim fame, the chamaxes standing before Eirene looked eerily still, the movements of their thoraxes notwithstanding. Or maybe their previous experiences with stranded pirates made them too sure of themselves, came a slightly nonsensical thought followed by another: she was right. She was bloody right, she just didn't anticipate two of those critters.

The movement to turn on her smart tracker which would considerably help with aiming the Gauss rifle at the creature closest to her was automatic. A fraction of a second to focus on info showing on the holographic display of her P-HUD and then Eirene squeezed the trigger. The shots came out in bursts.

[DJ P4NTSL3SS]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Rhane, Eirene, Kesperziaiepr
Searching the High Watch station
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

The Chamax on the ceiling of the hall is the first to notice the call to action from the three members of the away team. It opens its maw in a silent cry and just begins to scurry forward - when the corsair levels her rifle. There's a blue-white flash from the electrical discharge of the weapon, briefly illuminating the whole hallway just enough to wash out your headlamps.

Rounds thud mutely against its chitinous hide and it jolts with each impact.

They tear through it wholly, leaving splintered fragments of the creature's armored carapace.

Legs twitch. The body curls, with rounds having torn in one side and violently ripped themselves out the other.

Then the creature collapses in wholly on itself, in a small, self-consuming ball of viscous acidic goo.

The remaining chamax hunter, on the floor of the walkway, flails its pincers in silent rage as it moves to fight.

OOC Summary

• Eirene fired at Chamax #1 (the one on the ceiling), for 26 damage. Because you all wish to destroy the nice things I give you.

 

Current Initiative Order

• Eirene - (10)
• Kesperziaiepr - (8.9)
• Rhane - (8.7)
• Chamax #2 - (4)
• Chamax #1 - (2)

 

[Kiro Haas]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Rhane, Eirene, Kesperziaiepr
High Point station.
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

---

As the Away Team moves through the station - after having disabled the vacc-suit's com systems easily enough - Rahne's nerves continue to be on edge. Every step she takes feels like she's walking across her own grave. Every breath she draws feels like she's just emerged from an icy bath, struggling to feel her lungs. Every hair in the back of her neck stands on edge, and goosebumps crawl along her faintly gilded flesh. Something is just making everything about the situation feel wrong. It makes the gun in her hand twitch, and sweat to bead across her skin.

It's not until the 'jamming' fades away that she realizes exactly what had set her nerves - a seasoned combat veteran and navy officer, a Special Arms operative - so on edge. The constant field of hostile psionics surrounding her and interfering with their communications. She barely as a split second to glance towards Kesper - her fellow Psion, whom certainly must have been feeling the same thing - before the two Chamax burst into the section with her.

Then, the doctor utters a line so famous across the entertainment history of Humaniti, particularly before the discovery of the Hivers; "We got bugs!" she calls across the comm-line... just as her corsair colleague promptly atomizes one of the two Chamax warriors without a moment's hesitation. She joins Kesper in opening fire on the other one, though the lingering effects of the psionics clearly must have affected the Darrian doctor, as her laser blast goes awry... only for Eirene to splatter the second, coating the three of them in insectoid viscera and acid. Thankfully, their suits manage to resist the worst of it, but it's still somewhat unsettling.

"Away team to Base, uh... threat neutralized. Bugs were behind the jamming. Psionic trick," Rahne chimes in over the comms, still blinking and wiping gunk off of her visor.

[Sneaksby]

Gone was the man Kesper, in his place a shell of violence moved by training and instinct. Sighting the bugs, he removed one hand from his weapon, twitched two fingers to silently indicate the targets, and smoothly returned it.

"Contact."

An instant later a blast of weapon fire put down one, and he fired his stun carbine at the other. The weapon's lack of recoil made it feel somewhat like he was holding a child's toy laser gun, but the weapon's effect was real enough as it hit the remaining chamax square in the middle.

Unfortunately the enraged bug shrugged off the blast and charged right through...at him. The dead, hungering eyes were on him before he could get off another shot, so he gave it the boot - literally, raising his armored foot in offering to keep it at a distance.

It wasn't a pleasant sensation having a giant ravenous insect gnawing on his foot, however ineffectually. He was just raising his weapon to hopefully finish the job when Eirene's gun barked hello once more, suddenly obscuring his visor with bug guts.

Kesper wiped the goo off his faceplate, revealing his customary relaxed smile.

"That's that I guess."

[Niraverine]

Eirene did not anticipate that any of her attacks would be so devastating. She could swear she heard a pained howl of some cosmic trickster deity when her rounds blasted the first chamax into oblivion, then successfully ended the life of the second one. Had to be nerves though, she reasoned. Or the ringing in her ears when the static suddenly ended.

For a moment, the corsair simply stood there motionlessly and stared blankly at what remained of the monsters. The bullets and the grenade hardly improved their looks. As a result, both carcasses were slightly singed as well as covered with grime and acid. So was she and her companions. Eirene absent-mindedly wiped the faceplate of her helmet with a forearm, smearing the disgusting mixture of blood and viscera even more in the process, then holstered Gauss pistol. Her eyes darted from Kesper to Rahne, then back to Kesper. No visible bullet damage. It was a relief. "Sorry for opening fire so close to you", she murmured sheepishly. Truth be told, she didn't trust herself with a regular melee. It was a skill that she would need to improve, and soon. She shook her head to clear it and suddenly changed the subject.

"Think that's enough surprises for today and we can safely explore this place to find the powerplant?" Anything to make this place look less creepy and more pillage-friendly... The eyes behind the visor suddenly glinted with excitement, the woman already trying to guess what kind of treasures they could potentially find there and to calculate their worth.

[Dastardly Tristar]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Docked with the High Watch station
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

Urien had watched the action unfold through his monitor in rigid anxiety. He watched as the first Chamax disappeared in a slurry of biomass. It first failed to recognized the supersonic slug that had gone through it, but as though in slow motion, the carapace cracked first, then the flesh beneath it turned inwards, dragged by the momentum of the gauss round. It was like watching a black hole appearing within the creature, as it collapsed inside of itself, and then at its point of maximum compression, splattered everywhere. He actually lost visibility as a piece of the gore stuck to the suit's camera, forcing him to switch to Rahne's. Hearing their voices after the long silence from the jamming was a relief, and he dialed in to reply back.

"This is Base to Away Team . . .that uh .. .scans shows the station as clear. Powerplant is in Section 6 in the wing, try Section 21. If any of you are injured or need to swap suits, make your way back here. And mind the smoke, we had a bit of an altercation. Try not to spend too much time here either - we have a Far Trader to catch and her name is Delta Vee." He released the communicator button and leaned back, breathing slowly. It was a momentary reprieve before he swapped monitors to his room, where Hrssk was being detained. Astrid prowled her side of the room, barring her fangs menacingly at the stranger. He couldn't have asked for a more determined warden.

 

[DJ P4NTSL3SS]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Docked with the High Watch station, aboard the Reclaimer's Intent
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

For Urien, the return to the bridge - leaving the Vargr to sit wilted in the chair like a... well like a whipped dog - means that he arrives back at his station just in time to notice that the background hiss of the static has slipped away. And thus he is just in time to watch the spinning and whirling, balled up forms of a pair of chamax hunters emerge from the crudely opened 'airlock' into the rest of the station. They splay out and present themselves, ready to attack.

And then gunfire. Flashes.

Blasts of acid and gore. The whole of it lasting seconds.

It always lasts seconds. But this violent. The silence means more to take in, visually.

When it all finishes and the focus shifts, the Vargr can be found still sat at the desk. Though now having partly undone the collar of his vacc suit in a clear effort for comfort, he is still on guard. Warily eying the feline across the room from him. Feet pulled up onto the chair so that he sits more or less cross-legged as if that might better defend him should Astrid decide to take to violence.

The Vargr even ventures to offer, somewhat shakily, "H-hey, kitty. Good kitty?"

Meanwhile, Earrod listens closely, as do the others. The older gentleman still puffs on his cigarette and nods, "Mmm. Of course." He gives a small smile, "Pinned here between the Imperium on one side," he gestures vaguely in a direction one can only assume is towards the Third Imperium, "and the Hierate over the other way?" He shakes his head, "And then the Oghman raiders. Of course they play nice with their local powers. Its only out here they cause trouble. As if this whole sector doesn't see fit to be ruled." He finishes his cigarette, grinding it out against the saucer holding a tea cup that one of the four of them had been making use of.

Earrod shoots the three others a quick look, raising a brow before fishing out another cigarette and playing with it between his fingers, "Yes. Well. If I was hearing what you were saying there correctly, we've recovered the poor soul who set off the signal?" He smiles, "Good. Wonderful. I can imagine they're grateful." He looks towards a far corner of the room, "Its a horribly cold place out there, after all."

 

---

 

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Rhane, Eirene, Kesperziaiepr
Aboard the High Watch Station
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

The station sits quiet in the passing. The creatures are consumed by their own inner workings, leaving what amounts to scraps and shattered fragments from among what is not consumed by the acid. If you squint you can even see on the far wall near where the corsair fired, you can catch the faint sight of where those gauss rounds carried, over-powered, into and through the now dead beast - and then into and through the hull. And countless years of neglect see the self-sealing hull slow to mend its wounds.

With liberty to explore the station at will, you can find out what much of the station is.

It seems a large portion of the 'body' of the satellite was a mixture of crew quarters, ammunition storage, and utilitarian services. This includes staterooms, barracks, ammunition magazines, and what you are reasonably certain is a three-section division of a large workshop, medical bay, and barracks. All of it torn over or picked apart, yet still holding some of that same weathered and beaten Sindalian fashion like what you have seen for days on end aboard the Harrier. Perhaps with the same level of effort and scale of years that the Scholar's Tower, it could bare the same sort of aesthetic beauty - or garish opulence, by some standards - but now?

Whatever struck it, struck it hard.

The secondary cargo bay - section 20 - is left with partly open containers. You can find the remains of food. Much of it likely consumed by the chamax that the crew brought to such a violent and sudden end, with only a few scraps or frozen droplets left in the absence. And below, the docking facilities, launch tubes, and docking bays that would likely have held the military craft supporting the station's military are similarly empty.

A massive section of staterooms - and the armory - are punched out and open to space. What remains is left largely empty with only debris and loose-floating salvage. But it seems as if there is a great measure of panels, circuits, and other pieces that might be put to use aboard your own vessel or repurposed and re-set here should the more ambitious set to put in the potential millions and time into restoring this station back to its operational glory. You can even see that the nuclear battery banks - small slow-burn RTGs in banks of two or three - are hooked into a largely intact and functional electrical grid that seems largely as if it has just been unsupported and unmaintained.

All of the doors are manual - and you have to use an oxygen charging station in the connection between the 'top' and 'bottom' of the station as an ad-hoc airlock to equalize pressure between the two. But that ends with a sudden tug that almost takes you off your feet if you are transitioning from the 'bottom' to the 'top' and into the vacuum as pressure sharply equalizes.

The engineering section seems to be quiet. Fuel lines run to points in the wall, through various secondary pumps. It seems like the powerplant itself has been passed over entirely and is no longer running. The fuel is being run to those few things that require the liquid hydrogen where the RTG banks are not enough to keep things running. This whole walk-through takes perhaps an hour to get a cursory assessment: materials might be recovered, but barring serious industrial and financial effort? This station sits quiet, for now.

Finally, tucked in the connection between section 16 and section 19, the chamax "nest" - tucked behind a quartet of heavy steel-bodied crates. Sticky webbing providing a mask from the already dim lighting overhead, and revealing the crude circle of debris and food that the two of them clearly turned into their hide-away. No eggs. Only bone-shadows.

This rudimentary walk-through takes perhaps 45 minutes before the away team can confirm the place sits empty.

This place was occupied three times. Once by the Sindalians who built it. Again by a crew of rowdy party-goers who seemed to turn this place into their own private long-term palace. And the third time by those poor, unfortunate souls cast here. Finding skeletons and the fragments left in tucked away corners or under stateroom beds.

And with that, the station sits truly silent. Empty. Clear, for now.

[DJ P4NTSL3SS]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Heading for the M.V. Delta Vee
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

With the away team pulling back from the station after confirming it is clear - finding a fallow nest that the chamax they encountered clearly called home - and securing the ship, the Reclaimer's Intent is able to draw away from the station with little issue. The ancient hulk is left to continue drifting in Borite's orbit, screams for help now silenced.

The passengers seem to generally lighten their mood as word spreads that it feels as if the ship is once more getting under way. The four from Borite especially lighten up, drawing that much closer to home. And should Mahan and the rest of the crew allow it, the passengers will more than happily step from their quarters to stretch their legs, and will all generally mingle as a large and lazy crowd in the dining area. Otherwise, if it is requested of them, they will remain in their quarters. With some grousing.

The Vargr. The one who so cunningly identified himself as Hsrrk? Is not wanting to leave the stateroom Urien placed him in.

Or rather, he isn't wanting to leave the specific corner of it he now occupies, because Astrid seems to have been of a similar mind that so long as he stays in his 'place' that she will stay in her place, and there will be something like peace between them.

It takes just shy of an hour to cross a majority of the difference between the station, and the Delta Vee's transponder location. And with sensors up and fully functioning, artificial eyes can take in your surroundings to spot any signs of danger or trouble long before it appears. Or, in the case of the Delta Vee, spotting where trouble had clearly been...

A Type A-2 Far Trader sits in high orbit over Borite, currently drifting. As you draw closer, you are able to see the glimmer of sunlight against fragments of crystaliron hull that drifts through the vacuum, and you can see the hull - a burnt orange color, with yellow accents and markings - and a dark, black maw blown into the hull that shows the darkness of the interior. The thrust plates sit dark and the vessel is clearly not moving, only broadcasting or producing signal from her transponder to identify just what she is. It looks like she was hit hard, and fast. There's no outward signs of activity to be seen, and there's no longer any response if trying to hail the vessel on communications.

Comparatively quiet and dark, it drifts.

[Emmettmcglynn]

After some consideration, Mahan does allow the passengers free roam of the common areas after the distress beacon was resolved. He himself made an effort to mingle with them to keep any impatience down, as the ship was stalling quite a bit in dropping them off at whatever passed for a Downport on Borite. Once the station was swept and the crew's desire to investigate the Vee post haste was made clear he returned to the bridge and assumed his place at the Captain's chair.

As they pulled up alongside the Vee and the extent of the damage became clear, he lets out a grim sigh.

"Damn, too late. Urien, give them a scan in case someone got into a vacc suit or is in low berth. Everyone else, suit up. I'll bring you in to the airlock and we can give it a sweep. If nothing else, let's put the bodies to rest. Maybe the computer will have clues to what hit her."

[Dastardly Tristar]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Heading for the M.V. Delta Vee
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

Urien planted his boots on the console on their way to the Dee-Vee, mindlessly chewing on gum as he flipped through the various monitors. Keeping an eye on the passengers, in particular the Borites and their prisoner, kept his mind working. He had no particular reason to believe the Borites might be happy with the party's plans for managerial occupation, but they might acquiesce if suitable investments were made. Defense, industry and transportation - all of which would require dealing with the Oghman raiders. The station would be key to that, if they could convince Drinax to loan them a small skeleton crew to fix it.

The vargr meanwhile was a different matter. He had a finger poised on the room's fire suppressant system in case Hrssk did anything towards Astrid. It would ruin the room for him, but Astrid was a ship's cat- she would know how to flit out of there in a jiffy, leaving the poor sod asphyxiated as chemical foam flooded the room.

Thankfully his thoughts for murder disappeared as the Dee-Vee appeared on the horizon. Pre-empting a scan even before Mahan gave the order, the Intent spat out a quick and dirty read of the ship's interior. His eyebrows raised as the first wave of readings came through, and the boots left the console and planted themselves on the deck. "We are not late." He corrected Mahan. "But we might be. One thermal signature in the bridge - that might be a survivor, but their power plant is failing."

He highlighted the bleeding wound on the ship. "That wound was also recent. How recent, I cannot tell. But it might have happened while we were investigating the High Watch station. And on that note. . ." Urien brought up the densitometer readouts, rubbing his hands - whether out of greed, excitement or from the cold interior of the bridge, was left to interpretation. "The Dee-Vee has a full load. So I suggest we send the Away Team to recover that lucky son-of-a-bitch, and maybe try and shut down the ship's power plant before it melts down."

Edited September 3, 2023 by Dastardly Tristar (see edit history)

[DJ P4NTSL3SS]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Docked with the M.V. Delta Vee
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

Pulling in closer to the crippled, dying vessel it is easy enough to line up with one of the two airlocks. The bottom airlock onto the first deck has you coming aboard near the very front of the vessel, or at least the front third, and with the wingspan of the Reclaimer's Intent, that means its a necessity to dock using either the bottom airlock - that would have the crew coming out the bottom of the Harrier - or the second deck airlock, which would have the two vessels pointed in opposite directions and with the starboard wing of the Reclaimer's Intent swept out in front of the Delta Vee's nose. Add in a lack of coordination or communication from the Delta Vee, and a lack of any control over her latent inertia...

Mahan once more demonstrates his expertise at the helm, swinging the vessel near-perfectly into position. A swing and lock without a hiccup.

When you lock with the other vessel, your airlock is large enough for three members of the crew going aboard to fit in with full suits. If already in the airlock when the docking procedure is first underway, it is a familiar sensation. Familiar enough that it isn't even three hours past that you all were doing this same thing on another airlock. Only this time, when you peek through the airlock viewports you can see that the lights are totally within the normal standards for Humanitii - save that one of them is flickering on and off, and the other is dimming and brightening at random from the inconsistent power flow from what can be reasonably assumed to be an unreliable flow from the power plant.

No warning from pirates or vague threats with alien Jolly Roger's to be seen. There's even gravity, at a nominal 0.9G.

Processing through the interior airlock, there's breathable atmosphere. The terminal in the airlock even tells you that there is breathable air at nominal pressure on the other side, and you can see into the crew dining and public space before the door has even opened. The place looks like its a messy and disturbed chaos. Food left on the central table, a display screen that is currently on the menu for "Zero-G Outlaws 7: The Noricum Contingency" with the series signature, slightly off-key electric guitar track playing. And when the airlock door opens, the first members of the away team can already find one of the the Delta Vee's crew.

A human woman lays sprawled on the floor. She is on the floor by the hatch to the cargo bay, with a vacc-suit partly pulled on. Deathly still.

Surveying the crew shared space, you can tell how it is she has more cargo space than is typical for an A2 Far Trader: she's missing two of her lower staterooms typically reserved for crew to allow more room for cargo space on a vessel already notorious for just how much space she has for her displacement. Clearly, a vessel made for hauling a great deal of cargo over the length of J2 jumps. Add on the fact she sits with two triple turrets - one heavy with pulse lasers, the other with missile racks - and its clear that this crew are used to heading along the Florian Line or into other places where they might run into trouble on their own.

The stateroom is clearly lived in and used, but is currently empty with the hatchway open.

The ship's locker is open, with baskets and containers of batteries, hand radios, energy packs, and more scattered across the floor. The 'public' refresher also sits open, and even with the flickering lights you can see that its empty.

The iris valve to the cargo bay is currently closed, and the console by the door indicates an atmosphere differential in excess of 1 bar. Vacuum.

The other iris valve towards the bridge is closed, and the console by that door currently indicates a matched pressure on the other side.

If the survivor has heard or seen you docking, they haven't stepped out from the bridge to meet you.

Edited September 4, 2023 by DJ P4NTSL3SS (see edit history)

[Emmettmcglynn]

Using the autopilot to draw them in, Mahan throws on a vacc suit just one and a half seconds over Navy regulation. Getting rusty, he noted with consternation. Regardless, he is back at the helm with plenty of time to spare for maneuvering the ship into position. As they cross the threshold into the Delta Vee he takes in the situation and begins to respond accordingly.

"Kesper, take Rahne and go secure the bridge with the survivor. Make sure to knock, they might be jumpy if this was a raider. Once you have them, head back to the Intent and get them stowed away onboard and checked for wounds or vacc exposure. Urien, Eirene, and I will head to the reactor, see if we can't get it stablized. If we can, I'll try to put the bird in stable orbit so we can come back once things are less frantic. We have our comms this time, so let's keep in touch."

As he starts to move, he pauses and stops by the ship's intercom. Pressing his thumb on the speak button, he tries to raise the survivor on the bridge.

"Hello, this is Captain Mahan of the INS Reclaimer's Intent. We're here to rescue you, what is your situation?"

At first it seemed silent, and the taps seemed just like interference at first, but he realized it was VSR it was simple to translate. Unhooking his own vacc emergency kit, he hands it off to Kesper.

"Just in case, take this. Should have some suit patches and an air bottle in case he's about to run out." Turning back to the intercom, he tapped his own reply. "On/way. Here/Cafeteria. Engine/danger."

Edited September 4, 2023 by Emmettmcglynn (see edit history)

[Sneaksby]

As they explored the station Kesper made sure to record extensive footage of the interior, while dictating notes to his suit computer about damages and the extent of the station's functionality. Later, they could compile everything into a report for the technicians and scholars of the Floating Palace to comb over.

Later as they approached the Delta Vee, he frowned at what seemed to him Urien's naked, unseemly greed at the chance to pick through the damaged ship's cargo hold, without an apparent thought for the loss of life. Kesper looked away and buried his discontent. He had made peace long ago with the necessity of working with maladjusted foreigners.

After a moment's concentration with his psionic power, he looked to the others. "Only one survivor, as far as I can tell. A human."

With only a brief period of time spent travelling here, Kesper hadn't bothered to remove his suit, only did his best to mop up the bug guts and check over his stun gun. When the ship docked, he was ready to go.

"Copy." He said laconically to Mahan's directions. Entering the ship he kept his stun carbine in his grip, though not as at the ready as in the station. It wasn't likely they would meet any threats here.

The tapping language had him perk up. They'd gone over this in his training.

"They're losing air. No time to waste."

With that he enters the bridge, searching for the survivor.

[DJ P4NTSL3SS]

Borite / Sindal (Trojan Reach 2219)
Urien, Mahan
Aboard the M.V. Delta Vee
019 (Week 2) 1105, Imperial

A few moments of silence follows.

Then a tapping. A seemingly senseless or erratic tapping, at first.

But then several of you can recognize: Vacuum Standard Rhythm. A language that is often replicated across numerous societies (and the understanding of which is still required to be an Imperial Navy officer) but VSR and similar languages will often fall away as vacc-suit technology becomes more reliable, typically becoming niche knowledge of belters and miners. Its intended for communicating when radios or other verbal and electronic messages have failed, typically through hand-signals when viable, and otherwise often relayed through tapping against the recipient's face-plate to relay more complex messages that general hand gestures may not convey as easily.

"Here / bridge. One / survivors. Losing / power / air. Broken / voice."

From there, finding the way to the bridge is easy enough, and unlike with the station from before this iris valve has power.

The familiar hiss of machinery can be heard as the iris valve comes open and admits any members of the away team who wish to enter the bridge.

There, the sight waiting for them is about what one could expect from what the sensor readings would tell.

There are three individuals on the bridge. Or, to be more accurate, there are three bodies on the bridge. One of them just happens to be up and moving about, alive and well. All three are in vacc suits with patches that identify them as crew of the Delta Vee. Two of those individuals are at the stations for the helm and sensors operations, slumped in their chairs and unmoving. The third is a large man standing at the sensors station when you enter. He easily clears six and half feet tall, with broad shoulders. The vacc suit - a boarding vaccsuit - has a patch for the Delta Vee on the left breast, painted by stencil. And on the right breast it has a more crudely painted, 'CAT-KILLER'.

He turns to regard those of you who enter, tensed as if expecting a fight for a moment.

But when he sees that there aren't guns being drawn on him, he relaxes. Then slumps to one knee, leaning heavily on the chair for the sensors station. He gestures to himself, signing with a slightly shaking hand, "Me / D. Gone / crew. Victim / ship. Need / help." At this point, it might become apparent that he isn't moving his other arm much at all. It hangs limply at his side. He the way you came, then glances behind him at the woman slumped over at the helm station, before signaling, "None / crew. You / who?"

Edited September 4, 2023 by DJ P4NTSL3SS (see edit history)