Futuristic Unlit IC

[Spazzycat101]

Lydia Camden
​

‘Yes, it’s dead,’ Lydia confirmed over comms as she rejoined the rest of the group, reequipping the first aid kit as a backpack. ‘But I absolutely do not want to find out if there are more. As much as I don’t like to hear it said, Adira’s right. No damn way any researchers could survive being in a facility with something like that.’

Adira shot it again.

‘Hmmmmmyeah, the thing’s dead. But whatever we might get out of this place is absolutely not worth facing another one of those fuckers.’ Lydia drew her gun again. A quick scan around told her that nobody here seemed injured. ‘Anyway, everyone, this is Jane. She came here looking for something to do with research that she has yet to elaborate upon.’ Lydia spoke firmly and fixed her gaze on the scavenger. ‘I certainly would love to hear more about it. I think the captain would too, yeah? And probably about that as well.’ Lydia raised her arm to mimic holding a shield. ‘All that and then some. For later, of course, just don’t wanna forget about ‘em.’

 

[Vudukudu]

Kepler prepared another slug after the bomb went off, intent on getting another shot in if the thing twitched. Unsolicited, his optics suite cycled through IR again before returning to the visible spectrum. “This unit would like to suggest that the appearance of a single hostile is not worth abandoning the mission.” He chimed in over comms, lowering his weapon as he spoke.

STOPSTOPSTOPPRESERVEUS

“Unidentified hostile made few tactical decisions and made no effort to display enhanced speed or reflexes if it possessed them. I humbly suggest that further encounters may be evaded at a brisk jog and that mission objectives may still be met. The captured civilian has survived, it is not outside the realm of possibility that others have as well.”

 

[Viper Actual]

When the blast shook the station James used his support arm to shield his arm from the flash. Once the shock-waves had echoed throughout the structure he looked up only to see the creature lay in the crater. He approached it with his rifle trained and ready to fire just in case when Adira suddenly planted a bullet in its skull. "Hostile neutralized," muttered James as he lowered his rifle. He looked around the room just to make sure everyone was okay. "Kestrel, you alright? Cap? Lydia?"

Once everyone began to debate whether or not to continue James spoke up. "I don't know about those scientists but something sped past my leg right before the shooting started. If there are other, smaller and hopefully unarmed, lifeforms here the Brass and everyone else would pay a hefty sum for a chance to study it. Hell, our helmet feeds alone could be worth a bunch. Just something to keep in mind."

 

[Viper Actual]

Looking at the newcomer James grunted underneath his helmet. "Private entrepreneurs. We heard some of the rumors you heard. Guns are for self-protection."

"The galaxy is a dangerous place," finished Stratton and while some would perhaps have finished with a laugh James did no such thing.

There's a time and a place for jokes- this wasn't it. Proof to support that thought was quite literally lying at their feet.

 

[Epiphany]

Kestrel stared hard at the dead alien. She'd been taken by something once. Maybe not the same something but this looked as hostile and mysterious as her captors had been. Even dead, she brought her rifle back out and couldn't quite bring herself to stop pointing it at the corpse.

"I'm with Kepler on this one," she said, as the crew debated next steps. "We've met one hostile and we took it out. Maybe the researchers are dead, maybe they aren't, but they're sure as hell dead if we don't try to rescue them. At least now we know what to expect. And for all we know, this may be the only one."

"Besides, I don't think our employers are going to pay us much if anything for bringing back what we have right now. Even with a...rescuee," she says, smiling at Jane to show no insult intended. "I say we get all the intel we can and keep it quiet. If Jane made it through, we can too. Maybe we can find whatever it is James over there saw."

"So tell you what. I'm going to move forward, unless someone has a strong objection. I've got drones out and ahead to spot trouble before it spots us. I say we roll the dice and see if we can't bring home a bigger prize."

 

[Dragongal]

The team made some good arguments. But that didn't change the fact that their guns had all proved ineffective against this thing. Who cared about the reward for getting more information? A dead man can't spend money. Adira refused to believe there was only one of these, this entire place was built to accommodate their height. Sure, they had figured out how to kill one of them, but things could go wrong quick. After all, Jane had been quiet, that's why she wasn't found. Their group had just set off a literal bomb. There was no subtlety here. But then again, what if the researchers were still alive...? Alive, terrified, maybe injured. Maybe they had families.

Ah, hell.

"Stratton," Adira said, glancing over at him, "how many more of those thermal charges do you have?" To Kestrel, she added, "Like Kepler said, they don't seem fast. I'm less worried about us walking into them, and more worried about them closing in behind us. Our guns aren't effective, but those charges were. And I don't know about you guys, but I don't take kindly t' being shot at - and I take even less kindly to things shakin' off my shots like that." As long as more of these aliens didn't get behind them, they could always beat a hasty retreat. Especially if they had Kestrel and a couple of heavy crates around still. She sighed and said, "So... let's fuck up some aliens and save a few researchers."

 

[Vudukudu]

Kepler wasn't particularly used to having his input heard, and being validated by both Masters Stratton and Cavanaugh was something of a surprise. He waited quietly as the conversation continued, standing behind Jane with his shotgun tilted towards the small of her back. The others were apparently keen on trusting her, but she was still an unknown factor as far as he was concerned. Scavengers weren't particularly reliable people, not to mention the fact they had no way to validate her identity besides taking her at her word. When Adira folded, Kepler nodded and shifted his weight back and forth on his feet. Should he tell them what was going on?

No, not yet at least, he decided. The interruptions were minor, and telling them would only lead to undue paranoia. He was still the one in control here, though he'd have to talk to Lydia. She seemed.. naive enough, perhaps she could be misled into conducting a surgery. He'd need to have an explosive implanted somewhere in his abdominal region, small but powerful enough to bisect him without much collateral damage. Who he would give the trigger to was an entirely different matter, and one that needed pondering. He didn't feel particularly close to any of the crew yet, and he wasn't keen on turning his life or death decision over to someone who might misread something.

"It appears as if the matter is settled, then. I propose the use of a welding tool to seal doors that may allow hostiles to emerge from behind us." He said, glancing around the room and the hallway before them. "I assume we have such a device onboard the ship."

 

[Viper Actual]

When Adira asked about the charges Stratton took a knee and let his rifle rest next to him hanging from its sling. Going over his multitude of pouches and pockets scattered around the front and sides of his armor taking inventory went relatively quickly. "I have two more charges, a couple of low-yield magnetic grenades and one magazine filled with thermobaric ammunition. Aside from the charges I can't guarantee that the other munitions work. Grenades could possibly dismember single limbs but I can't make a promise with the projectiles."
That said, Stratton was as eager as Adira to continue their advance. Regardless of heavy opposition this location had so far proved to be a goldmine of things to record and report back. After all, information gathering was how he made a living.

 

[Dragongal]

Adira listened to Stratton's list of weapons and sighed, shaking her head a bit. "This is dumb, I just want everyone t' know, we're idiots for doing this." Hopefully if they died, it would be quick. Being killed by some unknown life form with some unknown weaponry that seemed... eerily familiar... that wasn't good. Maybe she shouldn't be tossing her life out like this. But there weren't many people that depended on her or even liked her, really, so why not try to save a few people? And besides, maybe it would be best for the people who cared about her if she was gone. These researchers had people who would miss them. Families, maybe. So, Adira had to at least try, as long as the rest of the crew was in agreement. Then there was that other issue....

Adira looked at Jane, idly pointing a pistol at her. "Look. You can run away or come along. But if you decide to come with us, and you betray us, if you go into this and then try to run off during a fight, if you put any of this crew at risk, I'm going to shoot you. And I don't miss. If you manage to get away, I will hunt you down. Got it?" Adira wasn't protective of her own life, but she was, and would always be, fiercely protective of her crew.

 

[Epiphany]

"No welding doors behind us. Surefire way for all of us to end up dead if we need to run. Now, let's move."

And Kestrel's happy to take point, although the drone scouting out ahead is technically the point to her point. The tall blonde soldier concentrates intently as she advances, juggling her 'real' vision vs. the multiple sensory inputs from her drones feeding into her HUD.

 

[Spazzycat101]

Lydia Camden​

At the mention of welding doors shut, Lydia was about to launch into a lengthy and exasperated explanation of why that was among the worst available ideas, but Kestrel beat her to it with a more concise answer that she found herself vigorously nodding her agreement to. If the rest of the crew went on this suicide mission, so would she, but dammit they would do it right.

‘If all we have is two more of the only thing that seems to do any damage to the giant murder monster, we’re going to have to proceed very cautiously. Stealth would probably have been a decent option--looked like it was working out for Jane--but if there are more of that thing then it’ll probably be drawn here by the explosive that just went off. That also being said, if we’re gonna move, we should probably do that sooner rather than later. And at least two should be paying attention to the way we go so we don’t get lost trying to get back here when we’re fleeing for our lives.’

Lydia was already preparing to mentally track the twists and turns they would be taking to the best of her ability, because best to have as many people thinking about that as possible, but she had her doubts about herself. As soon as another one of those nightmares showed up, or someone needed stitching up, she'd probably lose all track.

 

[Solar Daddy]

Silas had checked in with the crew to ensure everyone was safe and gave his own opinions on the matter, agreeing that they shouldn't weld doors unless completely necessary. He couldn't give his opinion on whether they should move forward or not, since his life wasn't nearly at the same level of danger as they were. Still, they decided to push on, leaving Silas to check his wound periodically and watch the cameras rigorously.

The crew stepped through the door between the crate Kestrel had crushed the monster with, walking into pitch black darkness. Their lights couldn't even seem to pierce the shadows, but infrared revealed plenty of large, round cylinders about the size of a car lining the walls of the huge interior central chamber. Despite the glass not being see through from the outside, they could clearly look up and see out of it, but no light was provided through the room. The only other thing visible in the room was about 10 meters ahead towards the center of the room, with a glowing heat that was visible in infrared. Despite being completely alien technology, the pathology ones mind would take from the shape of the object would be that it was a handle of some sort, akin to a throw switch. However, despite no moving signatures in any types of vision, there were inconsistent vibrations that could barely be felt through the crew's boots, and an unsettling feeling of being watched.

 

[Viper Actual]

After loading a fresh magazine Stratton followed Adira closely as the team ventured further into the facility. James could feel his breath slowing down as he stepped into the dark room. Besides his own pulse and the footsteps of the crew he couldn't discern any other sounds. Not that it meant it anything. After several attempts to bolster his rifle- and helmet-mounted flashlights Stratton eventually gave up and switched his visor to its very rudimentary and basic thermal vision. While not as advanced as the current generation of infrared and thermal optics it would at least keep him from tripping over obstacles or walking right into the lap of some vicious intergalactic being of horror.

Observing the cylinders around them and the device in front of them James glanced at Kestrel. "I have a bad feeling about this."

 

[Dragongal]

It was pretty funny to Adira that Jane seemed to think it was an idle threat, or that the captain cared who was where first. or that Adira really listened to Jane's mini-lecture. Hell, if they weren't about to fight some monstrosity from Hell, Adira would continue pointing her gun at Jane just to piss her off. Of course Jane wouldn't be dumb enough to try to fight the group, but if she was going to be going into the fight with them, Adira just wanted to make sure she didn't think she could walk out of it. "Nope," Adira casually said toward the mutual level of trust comment as she looked over her left pistol before cocking it, setting it to the high intensity mode. "However, I'll put my trust in mutual interest. Stay toward the back by the doctor." This would be for the best since Jane wasn't heavily armed like the rest of them.

Walking into the dark room, Adira switched to night vision, which didn't show her much, but it was better than nothing. As before, she kept an eye on where Lydia was, and made sure to not stray so far that she couldn't lunge and grab Lydia if needed. After all, if the doctor went down, the rest would likely follow. It was hard to not lose focus in this room, though. There were so many dark corners to keep an eye on, and so many places that another alien could jump out of.

This was such a bad idea.

 

[Vudukudu]

Kepler idly thumbed new shells into his shotgun, following the conversation and awaiting a final decision. He understood the others' concern and general wariness, but they had a job to do and he wasn't one to give up at the first sign of resistance. He was, however, no where near as willing to trust the newcomer as Adira-Captain seemed. Mutual interest and rationalist logic fared better in theory than in practice once fear comes into play, and Kepler wasn't about to make any assumptions. The safest course of action would be to imprison her on the ship and continue, but the others had made up their minds.

He'd keep an eye on her, and if need be, deal with her. As they continued on, Kepler's eyes flicked over their surroundings with heightened interest. Their encounter with the creature had only served to spark his curiosity, and he very much wanted to know what the purpose of this installation was.

 

[Solar Daddy]

With the full team stepping into the large dome structure, which was too dark to see anything in, small reverberations in the floor, barely noticeable, could be felt through the floor. They were irregular in pattern and seemed to suggest it not being a routine vibration from the station. Through the darkness, as the team slowly tested further and further, some sort of proximity sensor went off and shook the station more violently than before, some trinkets falling to the floor despite no one being able to see where they were. Soon, however, thin dim lights shot up from the floor to the ceiling with a yellowish tint, which slowly grew in intensity until they could clearly see the entire room all the way up to the glass dome. Lining the room were the aforementioned cylinders, which were now clearly containers of some sort. One by one, with a violent hiss of smoke, the blast shield around previously hidden glass sides of these cylinders revealed individually sectioned Beings, like the one they had encountered in the previous hallway. There were a countless number of these tubes, lining the walls of the dome as well as filling in rows of shelves that filled up the room. It was clear that despite these blast doors opening, the Beings inside hadn't reacted at all and were very clearly still in whatever sort of stasis they had been in. Meanwhile, the lever towards the center of the room still lit with red lights was visible. The last thing to become visible, on the ground, was a thin trail of a dark red stain along the metallic ground, leading out through one of the other doors across the room. At the other end of the trail was a puddle of crimson, with a cracked datapad and energy sidearm.

 

[Vudukudu]

Kepler comes to a halt once he sees the contents of the tubes, then decides it'd be better to take steps back towards the door they'd come in through while taking aim. When it becomes evident the creatures inside aren't moving, Kepler relaxes very slightly and lowers his gun a half inch. A cloning facility? Stasis chambers for long-term cryo-sleep? A biological weapons production facility? He opted for the second, given the alien architecture and inscrutable computers systems. Someone had probably discovered this place and set up shop, and it hadn't gone well for them. That wasn't comforting, and it only left..



Ṭ̸̛͖͓̹̬̟͎̼̞͎͚̍̓ͅŘ̸̨̮͎͍̻̠͓̪̆̊̎̎̋̉͊͜Ȃ̴̛̭̆̊̇̐̅̾́͠Ỉ̴̡͍͈͍̪̌̽́̽́̈́͛T̷̨͓̥̙̬̯̰͂́̅́̈́O̷̼̻̘̠͎͚̝̘̼̒̇̈́͂R̵̳̪̳̹̭̦̯͕̟̀͜ ̶̧̨̱͇̞̞̥̦̙̰̭̣̖̯͗̒̑̓̍͗̈́͂̏̒͌͜͝I̴̻͉͇̼͓̜̱̦̦̓͋̓̔̎͑̿̑̚̕͝N̶̢̧͇̫̈́͘ ̸̠̰̺͇̻͕̠̱͛̾̂̃̚̚Ṁ̸̡̯̯̭̫̤̂̇͂̓̈̒̈̌͆̚͜ͅÍ̸̢͇̬̞̱̙͈̙D̶̡̛͔̼͓̪̅̂̓̾͘̕͠͝S̴̨̰̖̮̹͚̦̄͠ͅT̶͎͉͔̦̩̫̊̂͌̓̐̽̿͆̌͑͒̆̅̕͝ ̷̡̠̤̤̺̐͠W̷̞̪̆̐͘H̷̡̠͚͚̙̯̥̳̀̂̍͘Ǎ̸͚̲̘͈̫͈͉̓̌̂̔T̸̛̟̬̼̫͍̪̳̬̖̬̝͗̀̀̔̀̋͒͒̅̂͘͝͝ ̸̡̛̲̩̟̎̋͋̆͛̌͐͊̒̃̽̉͘͠D̴̡̨̼͉͎̙̣̣̩͚͚̟̗͎̆͂̒̓̓͜O̶̦̬̲͚͛̆̀̈́̓̈́̈́́̎͘͠͝E̸͙̥̖̺̯͑̍̓̀̏̃̃̓̈̌̕͜S̵͕̰̣̾͊͌̉͆̀̂̆̈́́͝ ̵̰̬̟̺̖̔̃̎́̓͋̑̍͑͐̀̑͑̾Ḧ̶̤̯̙͔̝̹͍̘͔̜̺̱́Ė̷̢̦̱̱͇͕̾̀̄́͜ ̵̨͙̬̱̼̣̥̔̏̔̈́͘K̴̤̳͖̮̤̮̄́̋̓̋̑̉̑̓̅͝Ņ̷̮̫̻̄̓͗̽̂͐̀̐̉̑̕O̸̧̬̳͈̲̫͓͍̳͕̠̬̰̜͛̔ͅW̶̛͉͋̓̄̔̀̍̍̿̀͝ ̶̣̈́W̷̯̔̋̄́̈͝H̶̤̝̹̬̣̝̝͉̜͕̱̹̾̿̆̏̃͌̅̋̎̊́̈͜͝ͅA̷̧̛͕̯͔̝Ṯ̶̢̡̧̢̛̺̹̖̦̼̙̱͎̘́͗̊́͌̈́̀̎̅͝͝ ̸͎̮̟̇̀̌̀̾̈̈́̑͘Ḑ̴̧͓̲̙̘̤̲̫͔͙͉̓̈́͛͗͠ͅƠ̶̡̝͎͍̪͉̺̺͖̹̮̤̐̋̀̌́̓̀̀̊͆̇̕͝͝ͅȄ̶̦̬̮̪̝̜̰̮͚̫͕̫̑̅̏̄Ş̶̦̬̜͎̝̬̺̙͑͐͗̀̎͘ ̸̡̺̺͍͙̺̣̅̈̆̈́̊͆̈́̈͒̑̂̈̅H̸̢̨̬͖̱͖͕̘̫͐̓͜Ę̴̨̙̞̦̤̦̦͚͈̝̲̩͛͐̈́̋͗̀̉̇͘̚͠ͅ ̵̫̱̟̩͋̇̃̈́́̃K̵̯͚̃͊N̶͈̭̺̻̰̗͔̿͌͛͋͜O̷̰͔̲̦͖̻̠̯̥̳͓̖̽̅̾̊̄̈́̅̈̚Ẇ̶̛͔̺̭̖̬͎̍



Did Stratton know? Had he been sent along to evaluate the facility for Waning Stars to capture? While he was no particular opponent of Waning Stars, he was a philosophical opponent of slave-weapons and he had no doubt that was what this place would be used for. This place should be subjected to nothing short of nuclear fire, whatever it was. Kepler was comfortable with genocide, but he was decidedly less comfortable with allowing this place to continue to exist. "Adira-Captain, I have.. concerns." Kepler vocalized hesitantly. "New information has arisen which alters this unit's preferences for action. I suspect this laboratory's purpose to be malign in nature. As such, this facility and everything in it should be destroyed. Any survivors should be similarly terminated. I hold serious moral reservations about taking credits with these strings attached." He continued, pausing for a few moments before awkwardly shifting his weight back and forth on his feet.

"Please advise."

 

[Dragongal]

Adira glanced back at Jane and rolled her eyes, but it wasn't really visible under her helmet. "You just keep your head down and shoot when needed, and watch the rear, I've got the doctor covered." If Adira was given a job, she would follow it through til the end. This Jane girl was getting pretty annoying, though, and if Adira weren't currently preoccupied, that could be a lethal mistake for the scavenger.

The light suddenly flicked on and Adira jumped in front of Lydia. In an instant, she had raised her pistol and looked around for any threat, but there didn't seem to be any. The sights of her pistol rested on the tank of one of these Beings for a bit. What were these... stasis pods? Healing pods? Maybe even some kind of birthing pod? Adira didn't like it. But shooting one would probably do nothing more than wake the beast, and they couldn't afford that. That lever was also quite suspicious - didn't like that.

Adira looked at the puddle of blood and said quietly into her mics, "Guys... that blood is fresh. Less a half an hour old. Not enough blood for the person to be dead either - most likely...." Before anyone could ask why Adira would recognize that so quickly, she said, "Kepler, we can't assume that these researchers were on the wrong side of this. I say we find some, and if they don't talk, we can shake them down for information. Though, I'm not gonna lie, I think we should burn this place down, too." That data pad would help, but Adira wasn't sure if she should follow down this hallway, getting herself surrounded by these stasis pod things.

Adira sighed heavily. Damn morals. "Okay crew... Who wants to continue, given our current information?"

 

[Spazzycat101]

Lydia Camden​

Lydia went to rub her forehead at dealing with Jane and her bodyguard comment and general faux over-enthusiasm. Instead she accidentally slapped her helmet. After Adira’s words, she spoke. Her volume, but not her words, was cautionary.

‘Just do what she says, please. She can’t be negotiated with. By anyone. So don’t try, because then she’ll get annoyed—if she isn’t already—and I don’t want to deal with her when she’s annoyed. Also you probably won’t have to deal with that because she’ll deal with you. And then I’d have to deal with an autopsy. So please, just follow along.’

After that Lydia muted her comm mic to deter further conversation. She could still hear everyone else, but her own snarky comments were kept only to her.

Which was a good thing, because when the facility shivered more violently than before, she was loud.

‘HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK—‘

Adira leaped in front of her. Lydia leaned to look over the captain’s shoulder.

Alien clones? Alien clone army? There sure was an alarming number of the monsters that were very durable and difficult to kill. Like they were being mass produced.

Lydia’s mind was racing until Adira spoke up about fresh blood. She was right. But since there was no visible body, living or otherwise, there wasn’t much else that could be figured out here; she’d have to get closer to try and figure out how fast it had lost that much blood. But she could clearly tell a few things.

‘That is human blood. There are survivors. We find them, help them, then torch the Monster Alien Army Cloning Asteroid of Nightmares.’ Lydia’s eyes were still still fixed on the puddle. ‘Y’know, now I’m kinda glad we didn’t turn back earlier, now that we know that there actually might be some people left alive.’

 

[Epiphany]

The only thing worse than not being able to see anything was seeing more of those creatures. All their firepower had barely scratched one of them, there was no question at how utterly outclassed this team was if this facility became active again. As the team spread out to investigate, Kestrel slowed and studied one of the cylinders closely. Trying to make out more about what was inside, if there were any obvious weakspots. ...and for that matter, if there was any obvious writing. She wasn't a Trevelyan so interpreting the cipher of alien language and technology was beyond her but her integrated HUD/implant chipset had recording capabilities. If they had to blow this place up, better to walk away with something of value to offer.

The ominous red-lit lever was obviously meant to be left alone.

When the Captain spoke up to draw her attention to the blood trail, Kestrel stepped in to investigate. Following the blood trail, she bent down to pick up the cracked datapad and sidearm, then shrugged and tucked the gun away in case it was useful later. The datapad she brought back to Kepler. Vudukudu "See if you can do anything with it?" she suggests, passing their cyborg companion the remnants in hopes someone recorded something.

Dragongal
"I'm game for continuing, sir," she says to Adira, when asked. "Let's find those researchers. In the meantime, might help if our man back at the ship was ready to take off if things go south and we need to blow this place up before we get out...or if we're overrun. Someone needs to get the word back to civilized space what's down here." If talking about her own death bothered the woman, Kestrel gave no sign of it.

She hefted her rifle and stood ready to move out once the word was given.

 

[Viper Actual]

As the lights gradually turned on to reveal the full nature of the room James fell silent. He looked at the cylinders with wide eyes. At the same time he could feel his heartbeat racing through the roof.
He managed to regain enough composure to follow the others. Even though he had a horrible feeling regarding all of this he couldn't help but keep recording everything he saw through hus helmetcam.

Now Stratton he was no idiot. No, he knew people would plot and worry and scheme and tremble at the very thought of a place like this. His superiors included. Who wouldn't? An alien army in stasis. You could stomp Icarus so hard into the metaphoric ground that they'd take decades to recover any degenerate thoughts of living as anarchistic space-hippies.

Then again a place like this could spawn all manner of nightmares that'd unleash itself upon the galaxy. For all they knew they could be looking at the one thing in the entire universe that could efficiently eradicate Humanity- assuming that the rest of Humanity couldn't manage to funnel the aliens through endless dark corridors while hurling thermal charges at them.

Stratton looked at Adira. Situations like this made him appreciate his job even more: he was never the one who needed to make the call.

When the others spoke up Stratton pitched in; "I say we continue. Might be some survivors, hell, if anything the stuff in here gives them better odds considering I don't see any empty cylinders."

Stratton then briefly glanced at Kepler. "We should bury this place on our way out. I doubt anything good could ever come out of a place like this."

"It's your call, Cap."

 

[Vudukudu]

Eyeing the cracked datapad being offered by Kestrel, Kepler prodded it experimentally before taking it from her. With something he enjoyed working on in front of him, he quickly zoned out and fed the connector cable from his Interface port and its attachment to his suit into the device's port. Fortunately, it appeared to be a relatively standardized device, and his cable fit. The device had an array of files on it, but the most recent was an audio recording and he played it into his suit's speaker to hear it himself first.

Once played, a feminine voice breathing sporadically and talking quickly began to play. "Please, send help! This is doctor Savfhosa Morren of The HSS Logistic, I've been split up from my team, I don't know what happened to Alex and Burman, but I've gotten lost in this darkness and can't find the rest of my team. I'm scared, I don't know what's going on. We ran into something back in the previous room and Alex set off a mining charge to try and kill it. I don't know what happened to everyone after that. Please, if you get this message, find us and get us out of this h-" The message abruptly cuts off when the woman screams in pain along with three gunshots, her shrieks becoming more distant each second until there is only silence. After what feels like a minute or so of silence, and an inspection of the file with audio editing software reveals no more noise, Kepler shuts it off.

Turning to address his crew and yanking the cable from the datapad, he tosses the battered device aside, given that his port had already downloaded the files for temporary storage. "An audio log suggests the scientists we were sent to find, a team led by a Doctor Savfhosa Morren of an HSS Logistic, have been killed by the xenoform. The files timestamp reads twenty minutes prior to this moment, and also indicates that two more crew members were split off during the attack. Their fate is unknown." He explains, personally deeming it unnecessary to share the log itself with the others. "They attempted to kill one of the creatures with a mining explosive. It is unclear if they were successful and killed by a different specimen, or if the attempt was unsuccessful and we slew the wounded one." He adds.

After a brief pause, he chimes in again. "I suggest the use of a thermonuclear device."

 

[Solar Daddy]

Inside the pod Lydia inspected was a Being, seemingly identical to the one they fought, slowly circulating on its side in a vat of amber liquid. It's limbs were locked fully extended, its mouth chattering every few seconds, barely visible through its glass-like domed head which revealed its mandibles inside. Along the side of the tube were a foreign language, and despite not making any sense, it seemed eerily familiar while still remaining alien in nature. And, even though this was completely alien technology, the touchscreen display was remarkably similar to that of a Human interface.

Listening to everything the crew spoke of, and watching what was going on through various cameras on the crew's suits, Silas was having a hard time deciding what to do. On one hand, this group of scientists didn't sign up to be the stars of a horror film, and didn't deserve to be abandoned without any chance of help. However, his team's lives were also on the line, something he didn't want to risk if he could help it. Ultimately, he decided in his mind that, although clearly not expecting the mission to turn out the way it had, his crew all decided to try and help these scientists - and his crew was armed to the teeth. If any group besides an army had a chance at saving these scientists, Silas knew it'd be them. In his mind, they weren't civilians anymore; they had signed on to help these scientists, and that's what they'd do. He'd go out there himself if he wasn't scared of not having the ship ready in time if a hot extract was needed. "We at least need to figure out what happened to the crew. I think their families deserve to know that much, even if we can't save them." After clearing his voice, Silas added, "I have the guns hot and ready in case anything tries to come for the ship. If you guys ever feel the need to rush back, I'll have you covered." Silas was half convinced to let Otto keep the ship running, but he couldn't keep The Ambivalence ready for takeoff and man the guns at the same time. Plus Silas felt he'd certainly slow down the team from his limp, making him a prime candidate to stay with the ship.

"Just stay safe for me. For all we know, the one you killed could've been the only one awake."

 

[Epiphany]

"Copy, staying safe, boss."

Kestrel grinned at the rest and then tilted her head in the direction of the blood trail and the datapad it'd led to. "Let's see if we can't find where that poor lady came from and see if there's a trail we can pick up for those unaccounted for."

Once again, she offered to take point, keeping her rifle up despite how little good it'd done against the last creature. And ahead of her, one of her drones slid through the air on silent contragrav, picking up what its sensor suite could take in and passing it back to provide her with advance warning.

 

[Dragongal]

Adira listened to her team give their assessmenta of the situation. It seemed like everyone was willing, more or less. Whether they blew the whole place up at the and, that could be sorted out later.

Adira looked to Kestrel and nodded, then said over group-wide comms, "Thanks Silas, we'll watch ourselves." She sighed silently, then checked her pistols over for a moment. Next she checked Lydia's position and said, "You're still staying behind me while we go, got it?" The rest of the group needed to get in front of her and Lydia anyway, so she had a moment to speak.