Prison Pit
- Characters
- Prison Library
- Logs 1
- Logs 2
- Jailbreak
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Deep space, 0404/Menkor, shipboard time 09:43, 200/1106
 DM Note: Ladies Night for the Pit, as only Allan and Aimo this week! |
With a snap, the Vanguard emerged from Jumpspace at her planned destination. Although they'd been expecting it, the crew were unable to suppress a small frisson at the complete absence of planets. Experienced starhoppers all, they automatically associated emerging from Jump to an absence of planets with disaster. For the Snow Goose, of course, it had been just that. They turned to the task at hand.
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Martha and Alice huddled over the controls of the small ship's sensor suite. Martha had worked hard at learning to use shipboard sensors, and this was her moment to shine. Of course, being supported by the Vanguard's cutting-edge computer and having all the time she needed to work on it did no harm.
First, she launched an active sweep, sending a pulse of EMS waves radiating out in all directions. While she waited for them to bounce off something and come back, she checked neutrino and densitometer readings.
Neutrino was zip - no fusion power plants anywhere remotely near. With the densiometer, however, she struck gold. Not one trace, but two. One was clearly the Snow Goose, a thousand-odd dtons of mass, but the other was much smaller - one dton if that, but metal, several million klicks away from the first but moving at a bare crawl. "Probably another jump torp," opined Alice, and Martha lit the fusion motors and turned the Vanguard to head for the larger signal.
near the Snow Goose, 0404/menkor, shipboard time 13:22, 200/1106
Three hours later, the dark bulk of the Snow Goosecame slowly into view, growing larger as they approached. The schematics had suggested it but the reality confirmed it; she was a square, boxy, unlovely lump of a ship. Spinning ponderously through space along two vectors, she was surrounded by a cloud of debris, one of the most telling early indicators of a space disaster.Alice and Martha were cautious in the extreme. Easing up to the hulk, Martha placed the Vanguardin an orbit around it, allowing her to sweep it at close range with both the ship's sensors and the ol' Mark 1 Eyeball.
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The sensor readings were interesting. The ship was dead, to all normal measures. Alice commented wryly that had there been signs of life, they would already be heading away. No energy sources. The densitometer scans showed shadowy images of the internal structure, proving that the grav plates that normally blocked such sensors were dead. Some of the details looked different to the ancient Solomani plans the ship's computer had projected into a three-dimensional hologram next to the console, but ship crews were notorious for movingpartitionsaround and she paid little attention to that. More relevant was the density of the live spaces; denser than hard vacuum, indicating the ship was still sealed, despite the likely nature of the 'atmosphere'.
More interesting were the scans of the small craft hangars on G Deck. Instead of the shuttle and pinnace, the lower halves of both hangars were completely solid; filled wih something with the density of metal.
Visually, the exterior was very eroded; three thousand years of micrometeorite and space dust impacts had pitted and roughened the hull metal severely. Some details were visible. The ship had been designed with airlocks and hatches in several places, but all appeared damaged. One was simply gone; seamless hull metal covered where it should have been. The large cargo hatch on the starboard side and its' smaller neighbour had been welded shut - from the outside. Only the small manual airlock on A Deck at the top of the vessel still appeared usable.
The whole thing had an ominous, worrying look to it, and the possibilty of getting more information before going in seemed worth a detour. Pulling the Vanguard away from the derelict, they headed out into the black towards the smaller trace.
"Could it have been sealed and dumped out here on purpose?" asked Alice. No-one had an answer.
near the jump torpedo, 0404/menkor, shipboard time 19:08, 200/1106
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The second trace turned out, as expected, to be a slender metal cylinder three metres by one, pitted by three aeons in deep space, and injured by a deep creasing dent near the back. Sensor scans showed the slim shape packed with systems; basic real-space propulsion systems at the back, then jump drive and fuel occupying the bulk of the space, leaving the nose for the astrogation, radio, computer and data crystal arrays. After observing it for a while, the cons were convinced it wasn't going to do anything surprising, and Manx and Martha kitted out in their new battledress for the retrieval, leaving Gripper at the controls in case something nasty happened.
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Jetting across to the relic, Manx started unbolting access panels, while Martha checked the contents for booby-traps. It appeared that the orpedo had struck the side of its launch tube on release, which was why it was still here and why it hadn't got any further from the Snow Goosethan it had. Delicately, Martha disconnected the bulky, primitive computer and data storage crystals, and stowed them in a bag which she clipped to her armour. She forgot to allow for the extra mass on the return spacewalk, however, and missed the Vanguard by a considerable margin. In a flurry of creative swearing, she killed her momentum, turned around and came back, this time with more success.
Once inside the aft airlock, Martha and Manx scanned their haul with enormous care, establishing for certain that there was no sign of life whatsover, viral, bacterial or unclassified, before pressurizing the lock and disarming. A few minutes later, they had the salvaged parts on the workbench and Gripper had turned the ship to fly back to the Snow Goose.
deep space, 0404/menkor, shipboard time 20:13, 200/1106
Gripper's slight misunderstanding of Manx's astrogation meant that Martha had rather more time to work on the torp's insides than she expected. Rigging up the power took a few minutes, and a good third of the crystals shattered when she switched on, but once Minion was connected he was able to locate the message, translate it and replay it. It was a verbal recording, evidently made in great haste and in a ancient and colloquial Terran dialect, but the meaning was clear enough.
This is Captain Bragg of the IGHS Snow Goose, Mayday Mayday. Last co-ordinates Gaston, jumped for Plondis, God knows where (crackle) come out. We may not (crackle) logging this now to send when we emerge. Computer please tack emergence co-ords to this message and launch? (pause) We took on Markus Findlay at Gaston along with (crackle) 50 tons with 20 listed as "hazardous live animals". We put that in the Exotic Hold but (crackle) they escaped; melted their damn way out through the bulkhead. I don't know what the damn things are but they seem to be everywhere. I've issued every gun we got (crackle) left of the crew. To add to the mess, for some reason the Jump went bad in the middle. Never seen that happen before, but a perfectly good Jump is now a misjump and (crackle) wrong, mad, impossible! (crackle)
The grim account ended, silence fell and the cons looked at each other.
near the snow goose, 0404/menkor, shipboard time 02:40, 201/1106
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Redeeming himself for getting lost in empty space earlier, Gripper managed the tricky process of matching the Snow Goose's crazed mix of vectors with considerable elegance, leaving the two ships 'stationary' relative to each other and the process of transferring from one to another greatly simpler. None the less, Alice, less experienced in space than the others, insisted on rigging a line between the two vessels. "It'll also help if we need to get off in a hurry," she pointed out. She and Martha elected to make the first investigation, taking Zugh and Scarrow as backup in case things went bad. Each wore their new battle armour, and loaded up with a wide variety of weapons; Alice and Martha also took a large flashlight each, noting as they did so that these could be used at a pinch to club an opponent. Martha slung her fusion gun on her back, despite the danger of using such a weapon in confined spaces.
Gripper had hooked the telemetry systems to the Vanguard's computer, and as the landing party headed for the airlock he was arranging four holodisplays - the view from each helmet-cam - on the big forward screen.
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(A3) Gathered around the airlock after an uneventful spacewalk over, the four examined the hatch. It had a small, grubby window at the top, and Alice pressed close, shining her torch inside. All she could see was a normal-looking airlock chamber with a firmly closed hatch at the far side. Satisfied, they opened the latches - it took two of them with their battledress-enhanced strength to move the wheel - and hung onto it as the not entirely unexpected puff of atmosphere escaped from the chamber. Crowding in, they closed the outer and opened the inner, swaying slightly as the atmosphere of the ship rushed into the chamber and equalized the pressure. Their armours' sensors analysed the mix rapidly, and the onboard computers reported it to be a mix of nitrogen and carbon dioxide with minimal traces of oxygen, argon, and half a dozen other unremarkable elements, all at a temperature of around -180 celsius. Definitely notbreathable. There was no gravity, but their suits had magnetized soles which allowed them to walk reasonably effectively.
The interior of the Snow Goose was dark, cold and ominous, with debris and litter on the decks, dangling cables and components at random intervals. Their helmet lamps and flashlights threw sharp, bleak shadows which flickered and shifted with their movements, suggesting unpleasant things hidden at the edge of sight. The sensation of a place of death intensified.
(A2) The area beyond the airlock was largely empty, though the sliding door into the vacc suit store was open. A human-shaped figure sprawled across the threshold, and it was a moment before they realized that it was not a body, but a discarded vacc suit. The room beyond contained racks for fifteen or so suits, and four were empty. Further forward, the iris valve in the floor leading to B Deck was a gaping black hole, which for the moment they avoided.
Martha brought up the deck-plans Tallis had provided, and projected them in a neat holographic display to the left of her visor, then replicated that to each of the others. Turning aft, they slid open the door to the dorsal fire control room (A5) and found it unremarkable, clearly closed up and unused before the disaster, and untouched by it.
(A1) Further forward, the manual hatch airlock that should have led into the life-boat hanger was smashed through, from their side, only shreds of the metal of the hatch coaming remaining attached to the wall. There was no sign that this had been an explosion, and Martha shook her head trying to imagine what could do this much damage to an airlock that would fit into a space this small. The second hatch was also largely destroyed, but this time by what looked like acid damage; the metal was pitted and melted.
Zugh the vargr stepped cautiously through, rifle ready, and as he did so gave a yelp of surprise. He'd not been attacked, as the others almost expected; he'd just discovered that the lifeboat was gone. Opposite where the spacecraft's hatch would have been, the bulkhead was pitted and scarred by weapons fire, and the decking underneath was pitted and corroded with the same acid as the hatch.
Alice wound open the hatch up into the turret, but was unsurprised to see it undamaged and empty. Whatever disaster had overtaken the Snow Goose, it had not been the sort you could fight from turrets.
Descending into the dark maw of the floor hatch, they found themselves in the crew common room on B Deck. (B9) The remains of comfortable furniture, entertainment facilities and pathetic scraps of personal memorabilia werescatteredeverywhere, though whether by the results of gravity failure or some kind of struggle wasn't immediately obvious. Spreading out, they explored a bit,examiningthe doors into the rooms leading off the open space. Zugh was the first to open a door, and this time his full-blooded howl of horror nearly split the eardrums of everyone in circuit. Instead of a space beyond, there was a solid wall of a dark, slightly shiny substance, which immediately began to flow outward, breaking up into streamers and blobs as liquid did in zero-G. It wasn't water, though; it was a dark, rich red in colour, and faint wisps of steam rose from it where it contacted the bitterly cold gases of the common room atmosphere. Zugh backpedalled frantically to keep ahead of it, and all the others took an involuntary step or two backwards. It needed no confirmation from their suit sensors to add to their gut reaction; this was blood. Human blood.
Even as they backed away from it, it was already freezing at the edges. Frost rimed it as they watched, and the whole mass slowed andsolidifiedinto a nightmare still-life of eldritch shapes. All four stood, rooted to the spot. Alice was babbling calculations, "...four and a half by three by two... that's more blood than could have been in the entire crew!" and Martha was turning her head slowly, her visor shifted to infrared mode; "The other stateroom walls and doors... are warm... " she said quietly, "around body heat, actually..." The tension built over several seconds and then, without warning, a sensation ran through the whole party.
When a starship jumps, there's always a very brief feeling, a queer little internal wrench. It's gone in a flash, and with well maintained drives it's very mild, but it's unmistakable. When a ship misjumps, this sensation is far stronger, often to the point of nausea. This was what the party felt now. Cries of surprise sounded over the com, from the Vanguard as well; their sensors had picked up the sudden pulse of jump energy too. Martha was relieved to hear them; she'd wondered if the Snow Goose had somehow gone into jump. As the boarding party looked around them for the cause, Martha spotted what was different - the stateroom walls were as cold as the rest of the ship, and the frozen wave of blood was gone from the doorway into the one they'd opened. Opening another stateroom comfimed it; the blood was gone, if it had ever really been there.
Silently, they exchanged glances, reassured by each others' presence; solid, real, normal - bloody annoying. Steadied, they continued. Perhaps from a military instinct to leave no unknown behind you, they headed aft first of all, to the ship's main lift. (B18) The airtight doors were closed over the shaft, as normal, but with some tools and battledress-boosted strength they hauled one open. Below was the lift-shaft, unremarkable, with a similar door at the bottom closing off C Deck.
They checked the other staterooms and the galley, which all looked normal. Opening the Cleaner's Store, though, Scarrow bit back a curse; instead of a cubby, there was just a bulkhead wall, as if the door was against the outer hull. Alice went and tapped on the wall in the stateroom next to it (A13) and the sound was not that of a hollow space; the room was just not there.
Finding an emergency crank, they laboriously wound open the iris valve leading into the control room for the backup Jump drives and the fuel processors. (B20) What they saw left them speechless. More than twenty hexagonal bars of metal, around 3" across, protruded from the machinery of the Jump drive, all at precisely the same angle. It was obvious that they were not part of the original design, yet there was no sign to show that they had been forced in, or holes cut to accommodate them; they were just there. Martha opened some access panels and confirmed that the bars went all the way through the mechanism. There was no way these engines would ever work again.
Moving forward through the common room, they opened the iris valve separating the accommodation from the next section. The weapon racks in the security office (B7) were all empty, but this was no surprise from Captain Bragg's account. Martha moved quickly past this, though, because up ahead was the ship's main computer room (B5), one of her primary objectives. A few steps took her to the door, and a quick shove opened it, but she didn't go in.
The computer wasn't so much trashed as gone. The whole centre of the block of ancient machinery was cored out into a perfectly spherical space two metres across, the inside surfaces smooth as glass. Backing out, Martha blinked, then glanced towards the bulkhead separating them from the bridge. (B3) Weirdly, it wasn't where it should have been; it was angled at nearly 30 degrees from normal across the hull.
The iris valve was melted through and the edges torn, as was the floor hatch next to it leading down to C Deck.
Session Date: 7th August 2011 (250/-2507 Imperial) |
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