Log:It Belongs in a Museum!

It Belongs in a Museum!

OOC Date: July 26, 2017
Location: The good ship Sleeper Service
Participants: Stavros (as GM and himself), Adhar Gann, and Siya

Long story short: Three intrepid adventurers reactivate an ancient ship full of dead droids and corpses. Adhar is practical, Stavros is oblivious, and Siya is clever.

The sensors of the YZ-775 vessel known as The Aristocrat led its passengers and crew near a large asteroid in stable orbit around an icy moon. The red-hulled SoroSuub Prisoner Transport 'Sleeper Service' is only a few hundred meters from the gray rock.

The ship's engines are not running. Neither is life support. Thorough scans detect no life signs and reveal that the lower aft boarding ramp is already open.

"Razz tells me the odds there are any survivors is almost zero," Stavros had said. "If there are any, we're going to help them - if we can without taking any risks. This is a prisoner transport ship. Anyone could be crew, but they might also have a violent criminal record longer than The Aristocrat. Keep ship suits on; it's cold and there's no air."

It's not a big spacewalk, but with the ramp open, there isn't the option of establishing an airlock. So up the line they go, until they're inside. "Okay," Stavros's voice is a bit garbled. "Adhar, Siya- by these plans, the main engine is up-" He stabs a finger above them and behind. "-there. Looks like that's just a catwalk up there, with no gravity, you should just be able to pull yourselves up the wall. I'm going to look for the controls up front. With any luck, I'll be able to restart life support by the time you get power back. Okay?" Stavros flashes a thumbs up, looking back at the others.

Adhar Gann is not, as they say, totally happy with being on someone else's boat - but on the other hand, it's space, and he gets to go out and have a spacewalk. This is Adhar's element, and he wears it well: his suit is buttoned up professionally, with all the little tucks and draws that a career spacer would have. He still wears his blaster, though this is in a magnaclipped mount on his thigh instead of his hip; his suit is old and well-used, but the burnt-orange plates and dull gray fabric is in sterling condition.

"This thing is kind of a beast," says Adhar, repeating what he had said before upon seeing /Sleeper Service/ from the bridge of the /Aristocrat/. "SoroSuub must have licensed it, or stole the designs, because -that- ship is Corellian." He would know. He's Corellian himself. Right?

Siya floats along with the other two men, coccooned inside the space suit. Her hair is pulled back tight so she can have a good view through the windowed area of her helmet. She speaks into the microphone of her suit. She pushes away from the men and begins her ascension towards the catwalk. "Adhar, I hope you are more of a mechanical person.. I can help with the computer aspect of rerouting the power.."

"Well," says Adhar, not looking back as he floats forward down the deck to the far wall. "Let's find out, shall we?"

Stavros turns to head forward, away from the boarding area and deeper into the hold- and thence the cockpit, if this ship is like most. No walking, since there's no gravity and he doesn't have magnetically-locked boots. He is, instead, pushing off from the wall and aft and moving forward at a diagonal angle. "We can take it up with ship archaeologists later," the male Zeltron says drily. "This suit has the best in nightvision, so I'll be fine. _You_ guys - don't drop your flashlights, eh? Maybe even strap 'em on." And maybe they have fancy suits that have built-in lights on the helmet? Wherever they are, you're gonna need 'em: this place is pitch black everywhere not directly in sight of the open ramp.

The walls are lined with electric connections and pipes. There are ships where such unsightly things are kept behind white walls, so people can forget what keeps them alive in space; this is _not_ one of those ships. As Siya clambers up, she finds a short hallway leading forwarad into the ship, and she passes by a staircase that connects to the catwalk. The catwalk itself is scarred through sheer use -and possibly something more. It's hard to tell in this light. An open door leads aft to a room that, if light is beamed that way, looks to be circular- with something blocking the way from deck to ceiling, in the middle.

Siya floats along, using the lights on her helmet to light the way. An emergency torch is strapped onto a belt on her suit. She isn't very fond of the dark as you can't see what's coming at you. Though, she isn't afraid of this dark as it is just a drifting ship in the emptiness of space. Nothing is alive here..right?

Floating along, she pulls herself on the walls to propell herself in the direction she chooses. "So. You guys hear about why the sun went to school?" She smirks at the bad joke she is formulating during her travel down the hall. "It went there to get brighter!" It's ok to groan now.

Ain't even 'fancy' suits that have a light on, man - that's spacing 101. "Oh good, comedy," Adhar murmurs to himself as he climbs up a conduit to follow Siya. "You better be glad you're so sweet, Siya. That one has a real smell to it." It's said in good humor, mind you.

Meanwhile, Adhar traces conduits as he goes, taking note - power, water, oxygen transfer. If this is a prison ship, where are the cells? And then, of course, there is that...thing. Blocking the way. Adhar draws his blaster quietly, turning the beam of his helmet light down that way.

From closer up, the catwalk's marks are not all the same - some just look like the wear and tear of a _really_ long span of time, but a few are definitely from blaster bolts. That the blasters did no real structural damage to the catwalk says something about the durability of the vessel. Aft, the round room turns out to be shaped like a donut, with doors leading off the outside walls. These doors have little screens next to them that could illustrate names, perhaps, but none are on. There is a panel on the column in the middle that can opened, and it's large enough that one could enter it. This room seems to be right above the engine.

Noticing all of the above, however, MIGHT be delayed a bit, because floating in this room are a few thoroughly frozen bodies and and several droids. The droids themselves are of a uniform make, familiar to those who've watched footage of the late Clone Wars - these are the upgraded and more deadly battle droids that never fully replaced the Trade Federation's simple B1 droids because of their expense. These are antiques, in other words, but still quite effective. Several of them are in pieces, though- a droid arm still clinging to the floor here and there, and a droid separated from its legs by a few meters. Nothing appears to be turned on, and four of the five doors leading out from the room are open- though they'd require investigation to see more.

Siya continues onwards, chuckling at the reactions. She has to get one more in, "So. Why did the diners stop going to the space restraunt? Huh? Because there was no atmosphere!" Ba-dum-tiss. She does stop to analyze a blackened mark on the wall. A gloved hand is extended to trace the marking. "Somethingbad happened here." Her voice went from jokster to a bit more concerned.

Siya doesn't have a blaster. She leaves that to the men. Besides, she hasn't shot one of those things in years. She continues into the large round room, her light sweeping around the circumrence. A floating bit of droid debris bounces of her and she turns quickly to see what it is. "What.." Her voice trails off as the light lands on the form of a dead corpse floating by. A sharp startled cry comes from her and she does a little flail to jump back. For a moment, she just stands there mortified. "We need.. we need to ummm.. " Her voice trembles a bit. "Ok. There are bodies.." She did expect to see some, but it is still nerve-wracking to actually lay your eyes upon it.

She simply turns to the area in the middle. "Heading down to the ending room.." She floats over the middle and then pushes herself downwards to head below.

"So there are a lot of antique battle droids in the hold," Adhar says over the link, frowning faitly behind his faceplate; raising his blaster, he tracks one of the floating machines with the barrel of his 'Thirty. "Looks like they got into it with the crew. I'm going to run a test to see if these droids are inactive or not."

By 'test', of course, he opens fire.

A packet of crimson light snaps across the way, the whine of the blaster's report echoing off the transport's walls as the bolt slams home in the droid's skeletal torso.

The droid hit by blaster fire splits in two, as a patch of armor at the waist vaporizes into a mist that rapidly dissipates and freezes. It keeps traveling away from the armor, and larger bits bounce off the walls unheard, for there is no medium through which the sound of the impact might reach you. The droid bits bumped into by Siya move about slowly, ricocheting in slow motion off each other. The droid Adhar shot does not power up or react in any way, except that its pieces, too, are set in motion.

Siya reaches the engine room without incident, the ladder within giving ample purchase space. Inside, the walls are completely covered with pipes, switches, twistable handles, and small computer screens. No bodies in here. It will be the work of only a couple minutes to find the appropriate 'emergency restart' procedures, if you have any experience with freighters. If you do not- it looks pretty confusing. The whole setup is antiquated- it isn't intricate or expensive. It's built to last, not to be sleek, cutting-edge, or pretty.

"I found the prisoner area," Stavros says, his voice low. "Most of these have been opened, some by sheer force. There's some bodies floating around, and a bunch of droids. It looks like there are wall-mounts for droids to recharge in, between every holding chamber." His voice is flat, only becoming more animated when he asks, "You guys okay? My suit read a power blip and pointed to the upper deck, where you guys are. It's been a little on-edge lately, though. It might need recalibration."

"I shot a droid," Adhar says over the link. "You know, to test." Because of course he did. He drifts down into the engine room, replacing the gun on its mount and touching down onto the deck behind her. "Oh good, Stavros. You're ditching a modern Corellian vessel for a museum piece. I think this thing might run if we put enough coal in its boiler." Well, somebody's a smartass. That said, he looks to Siya, shakes his head. "Let me see what I can figure out down here."

Siya heads downwards. She stops at the bottom to glance up as a red bolt flies overhead. "Hey! Stop playing around! You don't want to accidentally blow us up!" She calls out through her microphone. She is grateful to get away from those poor frozen bodies. She didn't care if it was bad guy or good guy. "I am alright.. I did find the engine room. Though, I have no idea what I am looking at." She glances back upwards through the tunnel she just descended. "Yes I am worthless at this point. I will umm.. stand guard and make sure no droid parts come this way." She smirks a little, though despite her attempt at humor, it is clear by the edge in her voice that she is unsettled.

Stavros's voice comes through more loudly. "Hey! That's perfect! Because I need you up here, Siya. I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Should be straight all the way forward from where you guys are. this 'cockpit' is - enormous. It's like the front of a building. Let me see if I'm right, here-" A light is flickering from way down the hall. If Siya leaves the engine room and looks forward, she'll see the distant-seeming light.

The engine room _is_ archaic. But it seems like it might follow some antiquarian notion of Corellian design sensibilities. Adhar won't have much trouble finding the right series of switches and a sturdy switch in the wall that looks like the ones they stereotypically pull in order to activate the electric approach to executing prisoners. Three switches in a row and then the big one, and the engine _should_ start- if it's undamaged.

Oh yes, switches are being flipped. Big, fat rocker switches, easy to be poked at by beings with all sorts of digits. Corellians are inclusive; it helps their profit margins. Adhar finds the master board, and as he starts the sequence he murmurs what sounds for all the world like a children's rhyme. "One is for fuel," he says quietly, "That feeds the engine. Two is for power, that lights the spark. Three is for the system, which keeps it all running...and /four/..."

He reaches up to snag the big knife switch, which he pumps twice before pulling down home. As the system begins to rumble to life, he begins to bellow, "It's alive! ALIVE, I TELL YOU!" before melting into a chorus of dramatically evil laughter fitting any children's holoreel villain. You know, assuming the system starts. Otherwise he's gonna look real stupid.

You know, more so than just then.

Siya looks back to Adhar, then back through the tunnel that she has come from. "Alright.. I am onmy way." She says to Stavros through her com. She has to laugh nervously at the jokes that Adhar says. She is nervous because, she has to float through that group of bodies again. She moves on towards the light! "You know, people usually say don't go towards the light.." Eventually, she makes it to where Stavros is and settles to look at the cockpit. "Oh wow. This really -is- huge. How many prisoners were they transporting anyways?"

On her way to the front of the ship, Siya retraces her gravity-free 'steps' and continues on. Past the catwalk she and Adhar came up by, on through a yellow-enameled lounge room with a large table, food preparation area, and even a bartender droid. The droid is inactive, like all the others, but he shows no signs of damage, still ready to mix a refreshing beverage.

Then onward out the front and into a very tall open space. There is a ladder at the end of the lounge, which leads to the first deck, but the "pilot's chair" and its accompanying electronics are on some sort of cargo lift. Right now it's between deck one and two. Stavros is by it, messing with the controls. Most of what you need is built into the chair and its arms, but there is a console in front of it, too. It's clear why the lift is at the height it is, too - the very wide cockpit is at that height, meaning when the pilot's chair is at the bottom or top- _the pilot can't see out._

The Corellian's maniacal laughter is accompanied by a series of low 'thunks' throughout the ship, and a few lights begin to come on in the engine room. Much faster than you would expect for a ship as old as this one seems to be, the engine is sliding up towards a normal power range. The thrusters on either side of this central engine begin to hum as they warm up, and a regular 'thump' emits from them- at first very slow, but eventually resembling the regular beating of a heart, though on a several-second cycle.

Stavros points at the right arm of the chair. "I think the system controls are here and here, but I don't know what is what. Pressing _this_ button would be easiest. This little label someone stuck onto it with adhesive says 'Resume.' So, it should do whatever it was doing before it shut down. It'd be safer to go through a normal one-system-at-a-time progress, if you can figure out which is which. I don't want to mess up the reactor by overdrawing, you know?" Speaking of which- "Adhar, get out of the engine room in case something bad happens when we press a button."

Siya climbs up and into the seat, settling herself into it as well as possible. "This.. this beast is old tech. Way before our time it seems." She explores the tech a bit, furrowing her brows. "Ok, I think.. -think- I have isolated the life support system.." She points to a button. Not feeling a hundred percent sure, she does not press it. "I need some more time." She climbs out of the seat and heads towards another console which she thinks may be used to access the computer mainframe.

"And the Doctor does his work," Adhar says to himself, turning to march down the hallway - his gun's out again, because he does not trust those goddamned robots. Or that door that has yet to be opened. Waiting for a billion mynocks to swarm out and kill everybody. Or reanimated corpses. Adhar, like many spacers, is a highly superstitious dude when it comes to the horrors of the void.

There aren't many consoles, really. Only two. One of them is clearly something to do with flight engineering- sensor readouts, a low access port for an astromech droid, and so on. The other console looks newer than the rest of the ship, which is promising. Several thick power cables come out from it and lead down the big cargo area aft, splitting off to go down both walls. Additional cables branch off from it as it goes.

Unfortunately, it's debatable whether there _is_ a mainframe as such, or if all the systems simply connect to the pilot's controls or other terminals for direct interaction. There are a number of switches on this board, several having confirmation switches hidden beneath transparent covers. Presumably they unlock when they need to confirm something? The others are a series of dials and one multiple-setting switch.

Stavros looks at the power system on the chair. "If you think this is Life Support- I'm going to go with it. We can figure out the rest once we have lights, and gravity, and- air. Adhar, Siya! Make sure you're on the ground!" He himself sits down in the chair, and then punches the button Siya indicated once he hears confirmations that people aren't gonna break their neck and die when he does so. Gravity returns, lights turn on, and several thuds echo throughout the ship, and vents start releasing air- which immediately goes aft through the ramp open to vacuum. "Ah, crap. Adhar, can you go close the ramp? Or help Siya? Whatever." At least there isn't blood splattering the walls and floor, but it does make it obvious that the droids and spacers were in close proximity when they deactivated and died, respectively.

"Got the lock," Adhar says, running down to where the hatch yawns open - cycling it with a practiced and hurried hand. He has to hang his blaster again to do this, but not much atmosphere is lost.

Siya has to reorient herself as there is gravity now. The fluids in her body shifts and she just breathes for a moment as her body recalibrates itself. "Well. Kriff." She swears under her breath. "No real computer mainframe to speak of. Everything is a simple direct link of functionality." She furrows her brows. "Not even a way to close that door without manually doing it.." She turns to Stavros, "That console is for releasing prisoners, who are likely all dead now. That one is to command the droids.. if there any that can function still." She moves to the chair where Stavros sits, "Life support will not hold until that door is closed." No shit, sherlock. "You need help down there, Adhar?"

Stavros looks at Siya, and then her console, then back to Adhar. He gives the smuggler a thumbs-up at his quick reaction to speed up the air restoration. Regarding the rest: "Well, if you know how to work the droid control panel- we could start up both remaining systems. One is Propulsion and weapons and such, and the other is Auxiliary - which is probably everything else." He holds up three more labels. "I found these when gravity came back on. Someone apparently stuck them onto the buttons. Only the 'Resume' one was still there." He seems to think that's funny. "What do you think, Adhar?"

"What I think is that you should know," Adhar calls through the link, "That I sealed this hatch with a /hand wheel/. Stavros, you know I love you, but when you told me you were going to salvage this classic ship I didn't think you meant Exar Kun's private limousine. I stand by my comment about the coal furnace."

He unseals his helmet as the atmopshere returns, and the pressure gauge inside his helmet reads green; the air smells like old people and feet, most likely, but at least it doesn't smell like rotting corpses. "I'm coming up."

Siya moves around the cockpit, turning on systems. Now, asking her to fly this thing or whatnot is a different matter entirely. She can't do that. Atleast she was able to help identify the systems. "Alright then. So.. we got the ship and and running. Stavros, why don't you try and see if it will move onit's own?" As she speaks, she lifts her hands to press the button of her helmet. There is a hiss and a click before it is removed. Her nose crinkles at the stale smell, "Man. Nar Shaddaa smells better."

"A hand wheel?" Staros's voice goes up a few notes: "That's _so cool!_ Oh, um- lower floor is a straight big tunnel. Ignore those dead bodies with the droids, and the charging stations, and the containment cells, and you'll get here pretty quick. I'm lowering the pilot's seat's lift; mind your head." And he does do that, pressing a button that causes it to slowly retract down with the sound of gears.

"Well, if you don't know which of these buttons I should press- I'm gonna go with 'both.' The engines should be warmed up by now, anyway." And he presses both buttons. The consoles light up, and he moves what looks like the throttle forward experimentally. Nothing happens. Then sound of gears set into motion echoes from aft, and above, and all around. Stavros's attention is all on the readout in front of the pilot's seat, though- and he crows, "We've got movement-"

What he doesn't see is that there is, indeed, movement. Those gears are not the engines. Those gears are droids shifting as the red light on their chassis comes to life. There are three up here near the control room, in bits and pieces. Two begin pulling themselves by their arms along the ground slowly towards Adhar; a third, with one leg and an arm, starts a grotesque side-crawl towards Siya. And the sounds are, of course, coming from throughout the ship: these aren't the only ones.

Adhar Gann tests his Ranged:blaster pistols skill at a 100 difficulty.

 -Failed- (-28).

Adhar Gann tests his Ranged:blaster pistols skill at a 110 difficulty.

 -Failed- (-17).

"Dammit!" The one time he doesn't have his gun out, the robots come to life - just as he /knew they would/. Superstition serves the spacer, friends, but not in the immediate; he snatches the pistol from its holster, its lightweight grip allowing him to tear the weapon free, blasting away at the skeletal machines and filling the corridor with light and ozone. Nothing gets hit but the deck, however, even as he tries to back away from the scrambling droids.

Siya glances to Stavros as he proclaims movement. "Hooray!" Then a sound of dragging and gears catches her attention. The groteque movements of the incapacitated droid catches her attention and she lets out a yelp. "Oh Kriff!" She darts away from it and towards the droid control panel, trying to power it up. She begins to work at it with hurried fingers, occasionally glancing back at the droid from hell. "I hate droids! I hate them!" She lets out a sound of dismay as the console gives her an error message with a loud annoying buzz sound.

"So do I, so do I!" This is Adhar's heroic shout as he fires away at the droids that try and grab him - amid the chaos and the blasting, another of the droids reaches up to try and punch at him, he steps aside, bellowing loudly as he fires a shot that burns straight through its alien death's-head skull. Well, it's /meant/ to be a bellow. It's a little surprised along the edges. At least he doesn't shriek.

By the time Stavros finishes pieceing his rifle together, the droid that fell from the lounge is almost on him- and there is not _any_ room to turn this whole damn rifle around. He pivots on his heel to pull his torso out of reach as the droid grabs for him. He wobbles a little, then crouches down for a snap-shot with the rifle. One of those things is _right on_ Siya, and if they're going to have a chance, she'll be the one to make it, so forget about that droid on this lift!He takes the shot- even as it becomes completely irrelevant.

As the droids start to shut down, the one next to Siya gains an extra hole in his head, and the one next to Stavros falls off his lift. He looks around. All this rifle, and no one to shoot. "You guys okay? We clear?" He staggers back upright.

As the machine in front of him goes down with a smoking crater in its skull, Adhar takes another step back in preparation of firing another round. But he doesn't, because the machines collapse in a tangle of metal - thus is glory betrayed by Siya's lovely brains.

Okay, then. "Yes," he calls out from below. "We're good!"

The droid by Siya shuts down and topples over on her. "Ooof!" She just lays there for a second longer as the droids shut down around the ship. Her eyes close and she just breathes for a moment as the adrenaline is still rushing through her. Coming back to her senses, she shoves the droid off her with a noisy clatter. "Alright.. that's enough of that.." She pulls herself up and dusts herself off. Suddenly, there is a bit of realization that crosses her. "You know.. there is a reason these things were wanting to kill everything.."

"ALL RIGHT." Adhar emerges from the hold, holstering his blaster and striding up the stairs to the upper deck. "You've got your murder-filled wreck, Stavros, but I've had about enough of it thank you very much - so if you don't mind, I'm going /back/ to the ship to sleep off this adrenaline hangover before it asserts itself." He looks at Siya, frowning faintly. "You all right?

Stavros hip-presses the switch on this lift, again, to bring it back to the lower deck. "They're droids tied to some kind of control panel, right?" He picks up his rifle and slips it off the lift and onto the ground. "Somebody told them to." Hey looks up at Adhar, "Hey, Adhar! Thanks!" Genuine appreciation. It's not like he said anything about the ship that wasn't true.

Siya glances to Adhar, smiling softly. "I am fine, thank you." Her gaze shifts back to Stavros, "We should make sure these people get some sort of proper burial. Let them rest in peace." She takes in a breath before letting it out. "So. Let's get this oversized bucket where it goes."

"Get genetic tags and put them in cold storage," Adhar says with a shake of his head, looking down to Stavros where he was /coming up to see him/. "I'll handle corpse duty, get them properly preserved. Fortune knows I've handled plenty of frozen meat in the past." Oh good! All this -and dead bodies, too-. Well, he owes Stavros. Maybe not /this much/, but he does.

Stavros looks back up at Adhar. "I'll help. Bodies don't bother me much." Let us note carefully: after seeing the reaction of his comrades to the smell, this Zeltron never even popped his visor. It's easy to not mind bodies when you can't _smell_ them. "Once I get us in motion. Actually, Adhar- you can have the honor. I usually need Razz to plot the jump." He extends his hand towards the command chair, the chief relic of the relic. He stretches his neck, looks down at the broken droid parts. "Today was a good day," he decides, grabbing a droid arm and a dessicated corpse.