Session 11: The Laboratory Ship Calendula
Mar. 15th, 2024 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzMarch 13, 2024 / 067-1104
The crew arrived back in town and met up with Rufus Hassenbach, who just stood there, shaking his head and taking in the people in front of him. Moira was remarkably clean, but Myles, Hasta and Qupar were sooted and sweated up. Hassenbach's face was set in a scowl that said 'What part of low-profile did you not understand?'.
Qupar walked up to the man, taking the documents he had found in the office hinting at the informant in Hassenbach's office from his vest pocket and slapping them onto Hassenbach's chest. "You're welcome."
Hassenbach's scowl vanished and he took the documents, taking a moment to rifle through them. Then he folded them up again, and stacked them into an inside jacket pocket. "Right. Thanks. I'll deal with that." He proceeded to wipe his upper lip. "How long are you planning on staying on planet? When are you thinking about leaving?"
"Not long." Moira said, stifling a yawn. "As soon as possible."
"That is a good idea." Hassenbach said. He had obviously heard about a warehouse fire, and seemed uncomfortable with the idea of the perpretators sticking around too long. "The longer you stay, the more likely there will be blowback from your little leaving present."
He paid them 5000 credits each and then quickly shuffled off into the crowd while the rest of the crew returned to the Penelope with the liberated cargo.
Parappa and Dendr had been speaking to the cargo master and selected several interesting cargos to take on the next part of their jump. Parappa showed Moira what they'd selected. It was a shame there was no mail to take -- mail always paid well. Instead they had agreed to 40 tons of rough-cut materials, 20 tons of kevlar and teflon, and three tons of synthetic silks. "That's Dendr's choice, Moira. He insisted on taking the silks."
Surprisingly for such a small planet, they also took on 13 passengers; 6 for passage in low berths and 7 for the state rooms.
While they were loading up the cargo and passengers it seemed like some unsavoury characters were loitering about the cargo port, but none of the crew could put their finger on who it was that was watching them. Hasta took up a menacing stance near the cargo bay ramp while the dockworkers were loading up the crates just to discourage anyone from trying anything.
Arrival at Datrillian at 080-1104
The three days in system to reach the jump point went by in a blur of training, and then the Penelope performed the jump to Datrillian, where they had another few days traveling in system to get to Datrillian. A few defense boats of the local navy checked them out to see if they were pirates and then acknowledged the coordinates so the Penelope could continue on her way.
Datrillian was the moon around a large, volatile gas giant, made up of 70% water. It was another frontier planet with 8 million inhabitants, only slightly more than Faldor. Unrefined fuel was available, but because it was only available on the moon itself and it was a finite resoure the king had decreed it would cost them double what it would on other ports.
Datrillian was ruled by a king and a hereditary nobility feudal society, decendants of Gram in the Sword Worlds confederation. Its air was very thin, tainted with all sorts of other chemicals. Most of the population lived in one giant domed city on the shore of the second ocean. Outside the dome, people would have to wear respirators.
Before landing at the Class E starport they checked the local law level: They weren't allowed machine guns or automatic rifles, but light assault weapons, submachine guns, personal conceaeled weapons, shotguns, and all blades were allowed. Cloth and mesh armour were also allowed, possibly even the hidden variety like Qupar's diplo vest.
While the cargo was being unloaded, Qupar loitered near the cargo bay doors, just watching the people lazily. He didn't notice anything irregular, and when the crew disembarked they soon went over to the local bar for a meal. It was a modest dive with plastisteel seats and tables, serving a protein breakfast sludge that had Dendr wrinkling his nose in disdain.
Parappa saw a fellow bwap coming over to their table table and immediately perked up, looking excited. Bwap were very uncommon in the empirium in this part of space. The Bwap was a blue-skinned varienty, with a yellow crest on its throat. It wore a brown hooded caftan over his specialised suit to preserve the moisture in its skin, and had a typical nervous bwap demeanour.
"Hello, my name is Dalglee Hahsh." the bwap introduced itself. "I'm the local agent for the Lysari Laboratories. I'm looking for some people who are looking to undertake a bit of work. Are you in the area for work?"
Before they could answer, the bwap turned to Parappa and started yapping away in bwap animatedly, ignoring the humans at the table. Hasta just continued eating, glaring at the two bwap.
"This gentleman is very concerned." Parappa finally said to the other people at the table. "He's the local agent for a chemical company and they have a laboratory ship orbiting around the gas giant and they've lost communication. It's missed its window of communication several times and it's been over 160 hours since they've last heard from the ship. He's looking for a group to go up to the ship to see if everything is okay. He's assuming that given the nature of the gas giant being so volatile there might have been a communications failure or a blackout due to some sort of spatial interference. I think we should help him."
Parappa looked around the table expectantly.
"I think we should get a little more information before we agree to this." Dendr said pointedly, poking his protein breakfast sludge with a spoon. "Could it have been pirates?"
"Oh, no, nothing of the sort." Dalglee said quickly. "There's no piracy around here at all, it's quite a neutral planet. We normally have regular shuttles up to the ship, but it seems to be a blackout of sorts. It's been over 160 hours. I'm sure there's going to be a scientific reason for this. I have an air raft available to travel up to the ship. It'll only take three hours to get there and you could make contact with the lead scientist there: Hollo Ezrahm. I'm sure she'll say everything is fine up there."
"What kind of vessel is it?" Moira asked.
"It's a 400 ton laboratory ship, but what it does is ideal for scientific work. You can turn the grav pads off and the ship will rotate to simulate gravity, so it won't interfere with experiments requiring it."
"Was the ship on a legimate mision?" Qupar asked.
"Oh yes, we've been here for months." Dalglee answered.
"So what did the local authorities say when you told them your ship had lost communications?"
"To them it's not a governmental issue. We're a private organisation located on their planet. It's outside their jurisdiction. You know what bureaucrats are like. Wonderful people, normally. Being a bwap I love bureaucrats, you know. Gotta cross the i's and dot the t's! That sort of thing." Dalglee looked expectantly at the humans before him, but only Parappa caught on to that little slip of the tongue.
"I'm willing to pay you for your time." Dalglee resumed.
Hasta stopped eating, put his spoon down, and looked at the bwap expectantly.
"It won't be a very long job, obviously. You'll be there around lunchtime, it's only a three hour journey up to the ship, make sure everything is alright and I'm sure they will offer you lunch while you're up there, and then three hours back. 1500 credits each? I will provide the air raft and vacc suits for you to wear."
"I assume 160 hours of no contact is quite irregular." Myles asked thoughtfully.
"It is very irregular. Given the orbit around the gas giant and its volatility it has happened before, just not to this length. We've missed a window or two, but now they've missed three. We normally have a window for contact every 50 hours. We've never missed three before. I'm of the thought that perhaps an emission from the gas giant has taken out the communications array, and they can't communicate back."
"Who are we to turn down a paid, fully legal job?" Dendr asked, a smile curling on his face.
"I'll be most grateful" Dalglee started, but he was interrupted by Qupar.
"We go up there, we see if everyone is alright, and we come back down." Qupar summarised sceptically.
"You could meet up with the lead scientist for the project up there and she can explain the situation and you can come right back." Dalglee nodded empathically.
"Do you have any codes that could prove we come from you?" Myles asked.
"Good point. We'll program the air raft with the key codes so you can dock into the air raft bay on the ship. Remote access, and dock and enter that way -- they'll know you're offical. And the air raft will have our logo on it. And standard vacc suits from our company just in case you need to leave the air raft, and as a safety precaution as well."
Hasta and Myles nodded. Wearing vacc suits was standard procedure for travelling on an air raft.
"You're not trying to fuck us?" Dendr asked sceptically. "I don't like being fucked without consent. So you're not trying to fuck us?" He gave the bwap a little side-eye.
Dalglee turned to Parappa and started yapping away in bwap even faster than before. Parappa shook his head quickly, holding out his hands in a placating manner. Then Parappa turned to Dendr. "No, he's not trying to mess around, Dendr. It's a genuine thing. He's obviously very concerned."
"160 hours is a long time" Myles agreed.
"We bwaps don't like irregularities." Dalglee said despondently. "We like things prim and proper. Everything in its place. It messes with our bureaucratic minds."
"Why did you wait so long to send someone up?" Moira asked.
"We don't have the skills to pilot air rafts. We're an office of logistics for the company. We're planet-bound people, not space-faring travellers like yourselves. They've been out of contact before, but it was always atmospheric interference. We can kind of turn a blind eye but only up to a point. I know I need to write and file a report, so I'd be very grateful if you could go up and check it out for us. Are you ready to leave? I can take you to the air raft hangar right now."
Moira and Myles grabbed their toolkits from the ship and Qupar took his assaut pistol and the medkit they had bought on Bowman. Myles only grabbed some small weapons and a pair of magnetic grapples from his room, but Hasta took the opportunity to get his boarding vacc suit out of its storage and dressed up for the occasion with a happy smile on his face.
Dalglee showed them to the air raft bay and the vacc suits they could borrow, but Dendr needed a hand with his. Myles tried to point out which seals the man had missed, but Dendr just grumbled while they helped him into the suit. "They should just have some instructions on these things. Am I the only one who doesn't have much off-world experience?"
"I don't have much off-world experience either but I did get basic training in vacc suits." Qupar replied drily, struggling with one of the seals because Dendr wouldn't stop moving about while Qupar was trying to help him.
"Well, at least I have the skills to do this." Dendr said and started walking backwards towards the air raft, flipping the bird to the rest of them. Of course, being unused to wearing a vacc suit, his foot caught the vacc suit around his other ankle and he tripped and fell over. Dendr cursed in some obscure gutter language as he tried to untangle his limbs. Qupar went over to pick Dendr up as Moira stifled a laugh and Myles just shook his head sadly.
The air raft zipped closer to the programmed coordinates and they could pick out the laboratory ship in the distance. It was a ring-like structure, with light from the gas giant playing over the hull. The shadows on the plating danced over the name Calendula as the ship rotated around a central pinnus, just as Dalglee had mentioned. Solar collectors were extended and some navigation lights were blinking on the hull to make it more visible in space, but only some of the windows seemed to be lit and dimly at that. Myles tried to hail the ship over the onboard comms, but he shook his head when there was no reply.
Going into the ship through the cargo bay would mean depressurising the laboratory, so Parappa started to navigate the air raft towards one of the two air raft bays Dalglee had instructed them to use. As they passed the comms array, Myles pointed out there was no visible damage on it, so there was no clear sign why the ship had been out of contact.
Then they saw a human corpse, some 60 meters from the station, floating in space. It was a human male, wearing only light trousers. The flesh on his back and body was lacerated. Qupar nudged Parappa to navigate the air raft closer and tried to see more. The wounds didn't look like they were caused by explosive decompression. There were numerous cuts and there was blunt force trauma as well.
"It doesn't look like this happened by accident." Qupar said, studying the body as he half raised from his seat to study it better.
"We can recover him and bring him on board." Moira suggested. The air raft canopy could open. They'd lose the air to space, but they were all in vacc suits, so they would be safe to do so. "Inspect him on board the ship. See what killed him or see what happened."
Parappa steered the air raft closer to the body, and they openend the canopy. Qupar grabbed the it around a very frosty leg and carefully manoeuvered the body inside.
The doors to the air raft bay opened to their codes, and it was immediately obvious that it was empty and there wasn't another air raft parked there. Parappa landed the craft and they all clambered out, leaving the body in the vehicle. A quick check around the room showed it was dark because the lighting fixtures were all smashed, but their vacc suits had a spotlight they could see by. The room had an iris valve leading into the station with an indicator next to it. After they had closed the hatch they had entered by and the room had re-pressurised, the indicator next to the iris valve turned green. There were bloody handprints next to the door.
Upon seeing the blood, Myles took his snub pistol out and stood at the ready, cursing that the vacc suit gloves wouldn't fit into his revolver. None of them seemed eager to be taking off their vacc suits, but they took off their gloves and helmets to easier assess the situation.
While the airlock was cycling Qupar took the time to examine the body further. It was clear the corpse has been subjugated to heavy blunt force trauma both to the head and body. The lacerations seemed to be unclean cuts - no surgical knife had made these, but rather something with a sharp edge. Whether the cause of death was because of these injuries or because the body was floating outside was still to be determined. Only an autopsy would determine that but the corpse was still frozen solid.
"If he was vented out of an airlock while he was alive, his lungs would have exploded, and his head wouldn't have looked this way; there'd be no bruising if the heart wasn't pumping. That's how you can tell these blows to the head were from before he died. I'd say the cause of death was blunt force trauma." Qupar thought a moment. "It could have just been a burial thing -- why he was out in space. But as for how he got this trauma, I don't know."
"It's weird to bury someone in his pyjamas." Moira said. "You'd dress them up nicely."
There was nothing further they could do - and no indication he was a crewmate from the ship or just someone who just happened to float by, so they left the body and turned their attention to task at hand.
There was no comm panel next to the door, so they opened the iris valve and ventured out into the ship. Hasta took point, closely followed by Myles. Qupar made sure to be in the rear with Dendr, who had no weapon on him. Hasta nudged him and handed Dendr a slug weapon. "Hold onto this."
The ship being a giant circle, someone might come up from behind, so Moira and Parappa were in the middle.
The gravity on board the laboratory ship was a little different than they were used to. There were slight differences between the gravplates of the deck. The hum of CO2 scrubbers was a light background noise, and the corridors were dimly lit. Just like in the air raft bay, the ceiling light fixtures were smashed along the hallway, with only some light emanating from panels on the doors. A strip ran down the side of the hallway emanating very low emergency lighting.
They turned left and opened a door into an auxiliary laboratory area, immediately smelling an acrid burnt smell. The area looked completely wrecked. Most of the equipment and apparatuses were completely destroyed by what seemed to have been an explosion. There were shattered pipes and conduits in the wall and part of the floor had buckled. Myles and Moira examined the blast area and agreed that hull integrity might have been compromised, and wouldn't recommend travelling with the ship in this state.
They searched the room for about 20 minutes, and found several unbroken vials. Four of them were labeled '1077', five of them '1079'. Inside the vials there was a liquid that might have been used in some sort of medical injection device, but there was no more information on them. Dendr quietly pocketed the vials.
He wasn't the only one taking things from the auxiliary lab: Moira took a stun stick she found and handed a set of wrist restraints to Qupar at his request.
They found a pile of broken tables and benches in the corner of the lab. It seemed like there was something underneath, so Myles dismantled some of the pile and found a carefully concealed crawlway. There was a recently-cut access hole leading to the fuel tanks below. It was empty of fuel and instead there was bedding in there. Someone seemed to have lived there. Or hidden in there.
"At one point we had at least one survivor, who hid in the fuel tanks." Myles reported when he returned.
"Strange place to hide." Moira replied.
None of them remarked that Myles had used the word 'survivor'. They could all sense something was very wrong. Surely they should have found someone by now.
There was a sound like a creature skittering away. Something they couldn't see.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Read the next entry in this campaign.
Read the first entry in this campaign.
The crew arrived back in town and met up with Rufus Hassenbach, who just stood there, shaking his head and taking in the people in front of him. Moira was remarkably clean, but Myles, Hasta and Qupar were sooted and sweated up. Hassenbach's face was set in a scowl that said 'What part of low-profile did you not understand?'.
Qupar walked up to the man, taking the documents he had found in the office hinting at the informant in Hassenbach's office from his vest pocket and slapping them onto Hassenbach's chest. "You're welcome."
Hassenbach's scowl vanished and he took the documents, taking a moment to rifle through them. Then he folded them up again, and stacked them into an inside jacket pocket. "Right. Thanks. I'll deal with that." He proceeded to wipe his upper lip. "How long are you planning on staying on planet? When are you thinking about leaving?"
"Not long." Moira said, stifling a yawn. "As soon as possible."
"That is a good idea." Hassenbach said. He had obviously heard about a warehouse fire, and seemed uncomfortable with the idea of the perpretators sticking around too long. "The longer you stay, the more likely there will be blowback from your little leaving present."
He paid them 5000 credits each and then quickly shuffled off into the crowd while the rest of the crew returned to the Penelope with the liberated cargo.
Parappa and Dendr had been speaking to the cargo master and selected several interesting cargos to take on the next part of their jump. Parappa showed Moira what they'd selected. It was a shame there was no mail to take -- mail always paid well. Instead they had agreed to 40 tons of rough-cut materials, 20 tons of kevlar and teflon, and three tons of synthetic silks. "That's Dendr's choice, Moira. He insisted on taking the silks."
Surprisingly for such a small planet, they also took on 13 passengers; 6 for passage in low berths and 7 for the state rooms.
While they were loading up the cargo and passengers it seemed like some unsavoury characters were loitering about the cargo port, but none of the crew could put their finger on who it was that was watching them. Hasta took up a menacing stance near the cargo bay ramp while the dockworkers were loading up the crates just to discourage anyone from trying anything.
Arrival at Datrillian at 080-1104
The three days in system to reach the jump point went by in a blur of training, and then the Penelope performed the jump to Datrillian, where they had another few days traveling in system to get to Datrillian. A few defense boats of the local navy checked them out to see if they were pirates and then acknowledged the coordinates so the Penelope could continue on her way.
Datrillian was the moon around a large, volatile gas giant, made up of 70% water. It was another frontier planet with 8 million inhabitants, only slightly more than Faldor. Unrefined fuel was available, but because it was only available on the moon itself and it was a finite resoure the king had decreed it would cost them double what it would on other ports.
Datrillian was ruled by a king and a hereditary nobility feudal society, decendants of Gram in the Sword Worlds confederation. Its air was very thin, tainted with all sorts of other chemicals. Most of the population lived in one giant domed city on the shore of the second ocean. Outside the dome, people would have to wear respirators.
Before landing at the Class E starport they checked the local law level: They weren't allowed machine guns or automatic rifles, but light assault weapons, submachine guns, personal conceaeled weapons, shotguns, and all blades were allowed. Cloth and mesh armour were also allowed, possibly even the hidden variety like Qupar's diplo vest.
While the cargo was being unloaded, Qupar loitered near the cargo bay doors, just watching the people lazily. He didn't notice anything irregular, and when the crew disembarked they soon went over to the local bar for a meal. It was a modest dive with plastisteel seats and tables, serving a protein breakfast sludge that had Dendr wrinkling his nose in disdain.
Parappa saw a fellow bwap coming over to their table table and immediately perked up, looking excited. Bwap were very uncommon in the empirium in this part of space. The Bwap was a blue-skinned varienty, with a yellow crest on its throat. It wore a brown hooded caftan over his specialised suit to preserve the moisture in its skin, and had a typical nervous bwap demeanour.
"Hello, my name is Dalglee Hahsh." the bwap introduced itself. "I'm the local agent for the Lysari Laboratories. I'm looking for some people who are looking to undertake a bit of work. Are you in the area for work?"
Before they could answer, the bwap turned to Parappa and started yapping away in bwap animatedly, ignoring the humans at the table. Hasta just continued eating, glaring at the two bwap.
"This gentleman is very concerned." Parappa finally said to the other people at the table. "He's the local agent for a chemical company and they have a laboratory ship orbiting around the gas giant and they've lost communication. It's missed its window of communication several times and it's been over 160 hours since they've last heard from the ship. He's looking for a group to go up to the ship to see if everything is okay. He's assuming that given the nature of the gas giant being so volatile there might have been a communications failure or a blackout due to some sort of spatial interference. I think we should help him."
Parappa looked around the table expectantly.
"I think we should get a little more information before we agree to this." Dendr said pointedly, poking his protein breakfast sludge with a spoon. "Could it have been pirates?"
"Oh, no, nothing of the sort." Dalglee said quickly. "There's no piracy around here at all, it's quite a neutral planet. We normally have regular shuttles up to the ship, but it seems to be a blackout of sorts. It's been over 160 hours. I'm sure there's going to be a scientific reason for this. I have an air raft available to travel up to the ship. It'll only take three hours to get there and you could make contact with the lead scientist there: Hollo Ezrahm. I'm sure she'll say everything is fine up there."
"What kind of vessel is it?" Moira asked.
"It's a 400 ton laboratory ship, but what it does is ideal for scientific work. You can turn the grav pads off and the ship will rotate to simulate gravity, so it won't interfere with experiments requiring it."
"Was the ship on a legimate mision?" Qupar asked.
"Oh yes, we've been here for months." Dalglee answered.
"So what did the local authorities say when you told them your ship had lost communications?"
"To them it's not a governmental issue. We're a private organisation located on their planet. It's outside their jurisdiction. You know what bureaucrats are like. Wonderful people, normally. Being a bwap I love bureaucrats, you know. Gotta cross the i's and dot the t's! That sort of thing." Dalglee looked expectantly at the humans before him, but only Parappa caught on to that little slip of the tongue.
"I'm willing to pay you for your time." Dalglee resumed.
Hasta stopped eating, put his spoon down, and looked at the bwap expectantly.
"It won't be a very long job, obviously. You'll be there around lunchtime, it's only a three hour journey up to the ship, make sure everything is alright and I'm sure they will offer you lunch while you're up there, and then three hours back. 1500 credits each? I will provide the air raft and vacc suits for you to wear."
"I assume 160 hours of no contact is quite irregular." Myles asked thoughtfully.
"It is very irregular. Given the orbit around the gas giant and its volatility it has happened before, just not to this length. We've missed a window or two, but now they've missed three. We normally have a window for contact every 50 hours. We've never missed three before. I'm of the thought that perhaps an emission from the gas giant has taken out the communications array, and they can't communicate back."
"Who are we to turn down a paid, fully legal job?" Dendr asked, a smile curling on his face.
"I'll be most grateful" Dalglee started, but he was interrupted by Qupar.
"We go up there, we see if everyone is alright, and we come back down." Qupar summarised sceptically.
"You could meet up with the lead scientist for the project up there and she can explain the situation and you can come right back." Dalglee nodded empathically.
"Do you have any codes that could prove we come from you?" Myles asked.
"Good point. We'll program the air raft with the key codes so you can dock into the air raft bay on the ship. Remote access, and dock and enter that way -- they'll know you're offical. And the air raft will have our logo on it. And standard vacc suits from our company just in case you need to leave the air raft, and as a safety precaution as well."
Hasta and Myles nodded. Wearing vacc suits was standard procedure for travelling on an air raft.
"You're not trying to fuck us?" Dendr asked sceptically. "I don't like being fucked without consent. So you're not trying to fuck us?" He gave the bwap a little side-eye.
Dalglee turned to Parappa and started yapping away in bwap even faster than before. Parappa shook his head quickly, holding out his hands in a placating manner. Then Parappa turned to Dendr. "No, he's not trying to mess around, Dendr. It's a genuine thing. He's obviously very concerned."
"160 hours is a long time" Myles agreed.
"We bwaps don't like irregularities." Dalglee said despondently. "We like things prim and proper. Everything in its place. It messes with our bureaucratic minds."
"Why did you wait so long to send someone up?" Moira asked.
"We don't have the skills to pilot air rafts. We're an office of logistics for the company. We're planet-bound people, not space-faring travellers like yourselves. They've been out of contact before, but it was always atmospheric interference. We can kind of turn a blind eye but only up to a point. I know I need to write and file a report, so I'd be very grateful if you could go up and check it out for us. Are you ready to leave? I can take you to the air raft hangar right now."
Moira and Myles grabbed their toolkits from the ship and Qupar took his assaut pistol and the medkit they had bought on Bowman. Myles only grabbed some small weapons and a pair of magnetic grapples from his room, but Hasta took the opportunity to get his boarding vacc suit out of its storage and dressed up for the occasion with a happy smile on his face.
Dalglee showed them to the air raft bay and the vacc suits they could borrow, but Dendr needed a hand with his. Myles tried to point out which seals the man had missed, but Dendr just grumbled while they helped him into the suit. "They should just have some instructions on these things. Am I the only one who doesn't have much off-world experience?"
"I don't have much off-world experience either but I did get basic training in vacc suits." Qupar replied drily, struggling with one of the seals because Dendr wouldn't stop moving about while Qupar was trying to help him.
"Well, at least I have the skills to do this." Dendr said and started walking backwards towards the air raft, flipping the bird to the rest of them. Of course, being unused to wearing a vacc suit, his foot caught the vacc suit around his other ankle and he tripped and fell over. Dendr cursed in some obscure gutter language as he tried to untangle his limbs. Qupar went over to pick Dendr up as Moira stifled a laugh and Myles just shook his head sadly.
The air raft zipped closer to the programmed coordinates and they could pick out the laboratory ship in the distance. It was a ring-like structure, with light from the gas giant playing over the hull. The shadows on the plating danced over the name Calendula as the ship rotated around a central pinnus, just as Dalglee had mentioned. Solar collectors were extended and some navigation lights were blinking on the hull to make it more visible in space, but only some of the windows seemed to be lit and dimly at that. Myles tried to hail the ship over the onboard comms, but he shook his head when there was no reply.
Going into the ship through the cargo bay would mean depressurising the laboratory, so Parappa started to navigate the air raft towards one of the two air raft bays Dalglee had instructed them to use. As they passed the comms array, Myles pointed out there was no visible damage on it, so there was no clear sign why the ship had been out of contact.
Then they saw a human corpse, some 60 meters from the station, floating in space. It was a human male, wearing only light trousers. The flesh on his back and body was lacerated. Qupar nudged Parappa to navigate the air raft closer and tried to see more. The wounds didn't look like they were caused by explosive decompression. There were numerous cuts and there was blunt force trauma as well.
"It doesn't look like this happened by accident." Qupar said, studying the body as he half raised from his seat to study it better.
"We can recover him and bring him on board." Moira suggested. The air raft canopy could open. They'd lose the air to space, but they were all in vacc suits, so they would be safe to do so. "Inspect him on board the ship. See what killed him or see what happened."
Parappa steered the air raft closer to the body, and they openend the canopy. Qupar grabbed the it around a very frosty leg and carefully manoeuvered the body inside.
The doors to the air raft bay opened to their codes, and it was immediately obvious that it was empty and there wasn't another air raft parked there. Parappa landed the craft and they all clambered out, leaving the body in the vehicle. A quick check around the room showed it was dark because the lighting fixtures were all smashed, but their vacc suits had a spotlight they could see by. The room had an iris valve leading into the station with an indicator next to it. After they had closed the hatch they had entered by and the room had re-pressurised, the indicator next to the iris valve turned green. There were bloody handprints next to the door.
Upon seeing the blood, Myles took his snub pistol out and stood at the ready, cursing that the vacc suit gloves wouldn't fit into his revolver. None of them seemed eager to be taking off their vacc suits, but they took off their gloves and helmets to easier assess the situation.
While the airlock was cycling Qupar took the time to examine the body further. It was clear the corpse has been subjugated to heavy blunt force trauma both to the head and body. The lacerations seemed to be unclean cuts - no surgical knife had made these, but rather something with a sharp edge. Whether the cause of death was because of these injuries or because the body was floating outside was still to be determined. Only an autopsy would determine that but the corpse was still frozen solid.
"If he was vented out of an airlock while he was alive, his lungs would have exploded, and his head wouldn't have looked this way; there'd be no bruising if the heart wasn't pumping. That's how you can tell these blows to the head were from before he died. I'd say the cause of death was blunt force trauma." Qupar thought a moment. "It could have just been a burial thing -- why he was out in space. But as for how he got this trauma, I don't know."
"It's weird to bury someone in his pyjamas." Moira said. "You'd dress them up nicely."
There was nothing further they could do - and no indication he was a crewmate from the ship or just someone who just happened to float by, so they left the body and turned their attention to task at hand.
There was no comm panel next to the door, so they opened the iris valve and ventured out into the ship. Hasta took point, closely followed by Myles. Qupar made sure to be in the rear with Dendr, who had no weapon on him. Hasta nudged him and handed Dendr a slug weapon. "Hold onto this."
The ship being a giant circle, someone might come up from behind, so Moira and Parappa were in the middle.
The gravity on board the laboratory ship was a little different than they were used to. There were slight differences between the gravplates of the deck. The hum of CO2 scrubbers was a light background noise, and the corridors were dimly lit. Just like in the air raft bay, the ceiling light fixtures were smashed along the hallway, with only some light emanating from panels on the doors. A strip ran down the side of the hallway emanating very low emergency lighting.
They turned left and opened a door into an auxiliary laboratory area, immediately smelling an acrid burnt smell. The area looked completely wrecked. Most of the equipment and apparatuses were completely destroyed by what seemed to have been an explosion. There were shattered pipes and conduits in the wall and part of the floor had buckled. Myles and Moira examined the blast area and agreed that hull integrity might have been compromised, and wouldn't recommend travelling with the ship in this state.
They searched the room for about 20 minutes, and found several unbroken vials. Four of them were labeled '1077', five of them '1079'. Inside the vials there was a liquid that might have been used in some sort of medical injection device, but there was no more information on them. Dendr quietly pocketed the vials.
He wasn't the only one taking things from the auxiliary lab: Moira took a stun stick she found and handed a set of wrist restraints to Qupar at his request.
They found a pile of broken tables and benches in the corner of the lab. It seemed like there was something underneath, so Myles dismantled some of the pile and found a carefully concealed crawlway. There was a recently-cut access hole leading to the fuel tanks below. It was empty of fuel and instead there was bedding in there. Someone seemed to have lived there. Or hidden in there.
"At one point we had at least one survivor, who hid in the fuel tanks." Myles reported when he returned.
"Strange place to hide." Moira replied.
None of them remarked that Myles had used the word 'survivor'. They could all sense something was very wrong. Surely they should have found someone by now.
There was a sound like a creature skittering away. Something they couldn't see.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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