Log:One Small Crack
One Small Crack
OOC Date: October 30th
Location: NR Colony Station - Ourii's Venture. Orbiting Zsansar IV
Participants: Aryn Cortess, Chani Tahn, Zandra naMuriel and Qutha Buvu Pah as GM
NR Colony Station - Ourii's Venture. Commissioned three years ago as an independent colony station, orbiting the gas giant Zsansar IV and preparing for a new gas mining operation within the atmosphere of Zsansar IV itself. The past three years had been refining filtration system to make air purification for the mining station feasible and low power.
The original five year plan rapidly advanced by New Republic funding within the last year, the independent station having thrown their hat into the Republic's ring. But now both the mine and the colony station have been quiet since the corrupted broadcasts. No ships were patrolling, Z-95s and R-41s on the list for such. Running lights on the station were still on, but much of the lighting visible through viewports is dim or dark.
There was no challenge to craft coming out of hyperspace.
No challenge when they approached to dock - the hangar doors open, only the mag-con shields active to keep the atmosphere in. Atmosphere that was causing sensors to report an irregularity and a suggestion for rebreather apparatus. The hangar itself looking disheveled at best description. Tools strewn about, transport and work craft left with panels open or tucked to the side without any sort of sense of organization or order.
The first encounter when landing craft were finally descended from the unique silence available in space. Not true silence. But the soft thrum that can be more felt than heard from the atmospheric and power systems. The tick of heat exchangers somewhere that become clockwork night insects for those who know how to listen. But no echoes of others, of life, the pulse of the ship.
When the shuttle settles down on the deck of the hangar and the final shudder of the craft coming to rest on its extended landing gears vibrates through the ship, Chani disengages the safety harness fastened in front of her. The shoulder straps slip off with a gentle shrug and the ones that surrounded her waist have long fallen to the side of the seat. She rises in a smooth motion from thin-padded seat and steps closer towards the pilot's chair to settle her right hand against its head rest. Glancing out the grid-like viewport into the hangar proper, Chani allows a hum to rise out of her throat. "Looks like they threw the party without us." Chani shrugs again, though this time it's to shed the dark brown robe set over her shoulders.
She leaves it in the seat she rode in. It's a color change for the young Naboo Jedi, who no longer wears cream but a dark brown outer tunic, a beige inner tunic, and beige pants tucked into brown boots. The belt blends with the obi, though standing out against it are the numerous pouches and the silver cylinder at her left hip. Her hair is left down and it lightly caresses against her neck and shoulders with her movements. "Rebreathers, right? Where do you keep them in the shuttle? I've never been on one of these." Her right hand slips off the headrest with a light rasp against the fabric and she turns to the side, making no movements to leave the control cabin first.
Zandra was curious about the corrupted message, thinking perhaps that there might be someone there in distress. She thoughtfully put a rebreather in her pouch, carrying it with her, just in case. She looks over at Chani as she speaks, and she nods her head. "Seems prudent on a station that may or may not have stable oxygen to breathe," she agrees gently. Her own hair is up in a circle braid as it almost always is. She pauses to reach for the Force, letting her senses expand and reaching out to let the Force flow through her, and hopefully help lead her where she needs to go. "There should hopefully be sentients alive here, I believe," she says. "Hopefully we can find them."
"Over here, Chani," Aryn calls out. She's standing near a bulkhead kit she's pulled open to reveal several rebreathers. Many shuttles came standard with these in the event they needed them for emergency landings, or whatever scenario required them. Aryn happened to have her own, and she pulled it from her belt and fit the mask over her face.
Moving away from the kit, Aryn waited by the shuttle's door; she did not open it until she saw that everyone was fitted with a mask. The state of the station was on Aryn's mind, but this was not the first abandoned facility she had come to. On more than one occasion, she had come across stations like these inherited by the dark substance known as Mnggal Mnggal. She quietly prayed that this station was spared such horrors.
"Indeed, as Aryn has pointed." Qutha responds, wringing his hands as he brings the craft through landing routines. Looking out the sides viewports of the T-6's many such to study Chani's observation. "Bit haphazard." swallowing and giving a thoughtful frown before he is standing up at last.
His own mask fixed in place and the inner hatch closed before the ramp is triggered to open once everyone is ready.
The hangar is cold, though still warmer than space, and the sounds of the Singular Star's hull raising to that temperature in chorus on 'tinks' and clicks echo all around and around like tiny, metal, applause for those entering.
No challenge comes yet, no P.A. no alarms or alerts. Just a single MSE unit making its 'Bee-doo bipbip!' tones as it sweeps up dust and polishes in measured to and fro paths through the hangar.
Following Qutha into the compartment of the shuttle, Chani dips her chin in a nod to Aryn before taking up one of the rebreathers out of the open panel. She fastens the canister to her belt and lifts the mask to her face, where it pinches against her cheeks and chin while her other hand pulls the straps over her head and against the back of it. She tightens the four straps around it and checks a light on the canister to confirm that it's not leaking out past the seal of the mask. Chani moves towards the port side of the ship, where the loading ramp descends and the hatch to the shuttle opens to allow them to exit. It's not true quiet that she steps out to with a thunk of her leather boot against the ramp's surface, but it's as quiet as a station can get.
She descends at a slow pace, head turning from left to right and gaze sweeping around the interior of the hangar. The scattered contents and ships abandoned in what looks like the middle of maintenance earn lingering looks from the young Naboo girl, but her eyes are everywhere, as if trying to see everything at once. Muffled in volume, her voice nonetheless comes through the rebreather secured to her face. "It looks like someone went searching for something, doesn't it? Like they lost something and turned everything over looking for it." As if to answer her question, a warbling beep resounds from behind her. Rolling onto the ramp and beginning to descend, a blue and white astromech bleets something in binary. "Sky, I don't un--," Chani starts to say and drifts off.
She halts on the ramp. "Check out that exit hatch." Chani lifts a hand to point towards one that has a sign above it stating MAIN CONCOURSE. "Something.. dried all around it." Stepping off the ramp, Chani begins to pass by tools that her gaze descends upon. She comes to a second halt. "Looks like it's on the tools, too. ..And some hair? Not sure I wanna touch it."
Zan puts on her own rebreather with the ease of practiced use. One might think she's a pilot. That done, efficiently, she looks around. Her gaze goes where Chani points, and Zan reaches out to try to sense any life out there. "I'm not sensing any signs of life," she says, with a frown. "Anyone else?" There's a bit of a shudder at Chani's words, a muttered something or other under her breath. "Just once, could it be a beachside party?" she says, somewhat paraphrasing someone else's words from some time ago. She doesn't touch anything, pausing to find gloves at this point. "That doesn't seem like it's a good sign."
Aryn comes down the ramp at a slow pace and walks away from the group to get an idea of their surroundings. In the process of looking around, Aryn recognized signs of carbon scoring along the exterior hull of a freighter. Furthermore, the ramp belonging to the ship had experienced tremendous resistance whilst trying to close; the hydraulic pumps that controlled the ramp opening and closing had burst, leaking the hydraulic fluid all over the ramp.
Aryn rounds the ramp to look into the ship and spots a portion of a hand in view. She unclips a flashlight from her belt and ascends the ramp, shining her light inside the vessel to find a bludgeoned Sullustan male whose head had sustained trauma above one eye. Aryn could tell from one glance this was a mortal wound. She stays a moment to cast her light over the rest of the interior of the ship.
The transport craft being examined by Aryn shows, further in to what shows to be the main hold a series of supply and equipment crates. Stacked neatly, crash webbing hooked in place. More dead, men and women of different species, rodian, bith, human and numbering just shy of a half dozen. Among them a repulsor pry-hook, designed for pulling metal plates. Each of those bodies cast about as if they had set on one another with fists and tools. Battering one another until the last to fall simply died with their hands around the throat of a bothan.
The hatch to the main concourse is jammed with a hydrospanner shoved into the works, and the silence persists unabated.
Beyond, the corridor flickers dull orange from light strips that struggle to remain online, pulsing suddenly as if overloaded on their power circuit before emergency systems cut the overflow. But other than that, the hallway leading deeper is clean and clear of debris or signs similar to those found in the hangar.
"I'm not quite skilled enough to reach that far out with the Force," Chani remarks to Zandra when she asks if anyone else can sense signs of life. On the topic of beachside parties, she's quiet. "It does not." Her attention drifts from Zandra towards Aryn when a click of noise and a beam of light refracts off nearby metal in response to the flood of illumination cast by the blond's flashlight. "Find anything?" She raises her voice, though the mask might keep it from traveling too far. "Stick close, Sky." Chani winds her way through the hangar and towards the main concourse exit, avoiding swathes of tools scattered around and any of the congealed substance decorating the hangar's deck. Her head cants to the side and beneath the mask her jaw works.
Regulating the pressure in her ear clears it of a minor build up and makes it easier to hear, but all that comes through is the barely there hum that synchronizes with an almost imperceptible vibration in the deck. Recycled air, too, is audible if she gets close enough to a vent. What she wanders close to, though, is the hatch with all the fluid around it and a hydrospanner stabbed into the panel next to it. Chani slows as she nears the hatch, not willing to commit to stepping through and over the lip of it. She gestures with a hand towards the port. "Sky, would you mind seeing if you can link into the station? If nothing else, maybe find what's up with the life support?" The wide sleeve around her right wrist shifts with the gesturing motion, but settles a moment after her arm does next to her side.
The BB-series droid bleeps a reply and rolls on its dome up to the wall. A compartment juts open and the droid extends its datalink arm into the port available. A quick series of twists and turns has it accessing the network. It begins to whistle and beep after a few seconds, relaying something in binary to the group. "..Anyone understand binary? I don't.." Chani trails off while clearing her throat.
Zandra's busy looking at what she can see. "The air systems are jammed full open," she notes. She frowns as she finds a single MSE, staring at it. Chani's words have Zan look up, curiously, as the droid answers. She blinks again, and then says, "The air's not safe to breathe, due to some trace element. That's what he said, Chani." She glances around, thoughtful. "There should be - it's really weird there's only this one MSE - there should be fo- oh." Pause. "Why in blue blazes would anyone jam tools like this into power node points? Did they station go haywire or something?"
Aryn takes a few moments to run a scan of the air, then test several of the dead for chemical imbalances that might have explained the all out melee. Aryn's suspicion was an airborne toxin, something that increased a threat or fear response and drove them to this state. She finds more questions than answers in her search and exits the ship with a puzzled look on her face.
When asked if she had found anything, Aryn nods. "Several dead. All bludgeoned and beaten. I hypothesize that something in the air, or maybe the station's proximity to the planet, might be responsible for the chemical imbalances, though I am not certain. I have isolated a peculiar chemical, though. I will need more time to analyze it. Anything out here?" Aryn rejoins her companions with datapad in hand. She searches through the holonet for a match to the chemical she discovered.
Qutha listens first to Chani's request - about to apologize for a lack of knowledge when Zann translates. The Zelosian slowly turning a pirouette that makes his path look like a corkscrew while he takes in the sights and blanches at the information being relayed at the same time. Creeping into the corridor by just a few steps and shining the tac-light he'd been gifted by one of those present - to eliminate the irregular strobe of the lights.
"Terrible deaths... either way." brows knit together.
Aryn's datapad chimes several times, announcing negative results to her scans and the MSE droid still at work stops near naMuriel to bump against the 'dead' members of its service group, again only giving off the general alert tone - to let others know it could be underfoot briefly.
A panel near the hatchway lights up, momentarily, with a single golden hued indicator light next to the lens that clearly shifts due to the bouncing of light from the surface - a thin whir of gears telltale. The movements small, centering as though to keep multiple objects in view.
"A trace element? Can you isolate it and identify it through the station?" The question posed has the droid's datalink arm twisting right to left in various increments as it dives deeper into the network that it's linked to. Chani steps forward, past the lip of the primary hatch, and onto the main concourse. Orange lighting flickers up and down the corridor, casting everything in a warm glow. The low intensity leaves shadows cast in corners and around the hatches and corridors that split off from it. She's no more than two steps inside, making it easy to hear Aryn as the woman approaches. "Sky found a trace element in the air that's making it unsafe to breathe. I asked it to try to identify it with station records, if possible. There's.. blood or something all around this hatch onto the main concourse. I think that's what it is."
Using the Zelosian's light beam to see what she can as its panned around, Chani calls back. "The corridor isn't very long. Looks like two hatches to the side and then another hatch into a different area." Glancing to the side, Chani finds a standing display near the wall and steps closer to it. "Here's a map." She draws her datapad from a pouch near her right hip and accesses the necessary file through the link provided on the board. "Got it." Back on the other side of the hatch, Sky begins to warble again. It's quite a long series of binary bursts, but it's being fed directly to Chani via her datapad this time. "According to this, the station sensors found this element three days before the broadcast began. Then twenty hours before the broadcast, the amount of it increased. Security forces here started receiving an overload of reports of strange noises, seeing shadow figures, and equipment malfunctions that were checked and found to not be malfunctioning at all."
Chani slips through the data with the tip of her right finger scrolling through all the information provided. "Not long after that, the station commander ordered general quarters to security. Ten minutes before the broadcast, sensors picked up stun blasts from the security force weapons. Then they began en masse. There's.. no log after the broadcast itself. Sky says it found door codes, too. It can relay all that to your datapads if you connect to the station network."
Zandra stops moving, centers herself, and tries to reach out to the Force. It brings a shiver to her, as she senses - well, not what she was trying to figure out. Her breath catches, and she goes completely eerily still for a moment. "I - this is a very sad place," is her first comment, voice strained a bit. "There's so much fear and anger - it feels like it's clouding the Force and bringing the dark side near." her hands raise to fold at her waist for a moment, and then she keeps one hand atop her lightsaber, uneasily. "Like it's a sponge soaked in the sensations and holding them. Holding them long enough to draw the dark side near. We shouldn't leave it like this."
Aryn follows Chani and keeps her datapad out, the search still making an icon on the screen spin; 'searching' it says. Quiet and listening to the explanation from Chani, they had a timeline of sorts which put Aryn in the frame of mind to focus. "Hmm," She offers in reply and turns from Chani to walk back into the hangar.
Zandra's exposition about the emotions present give Aryn more context to focus.
Giving the other three her back for a moment, Aryn centers her thoughts and reaches out with the Force using an advanced technique that allowed her to reconstruct what had happened in this location. It takes several minutes, her perception through the Force expanding to a point the others who are sensitive to this energy could feel it.
Then, things began to come back into perspective. Aryn no longer saw the ruined hangar when she looked around, it was whole and functioning. There was an argument between a Lall, a Sullustan, and a number of other hangar workers. At first, their voices sounded like they were underwater, but Aryn focused on their emotions which were running high, like Zandra had said: Anger, frustration, and fear. There were talks of extreme paycuts because of equipment malfunctions and the accusation that people were not doing their jobs. The group in this hangar took the accusations seriously and acted irrationally about it. First a human female was struck with a spanner, then more violence...
Aryn walks through the echo back to the ship, where she witnesses the survivors of the first melee using a repulsor pry to pull the ramp down. More killing ensues.
Aryn returns to the present and turns about with a soft swish of her cape. "It is all tied together: Security looking into equipment failures and malfunctions.. it evolved into threats of pay cuts, which sent workers into a violent frenzy." Aryn's datapad beeps and she glances at it to convey its findings. "The unknown element in the air contains mercury, ethanol, traces of bisphenol A, and serotonin blockers that create amygdala problems. Things like judgement and restraint were affected by ingesting this chemical. Fear, paranoia, anger.. these were all amplified without any means to regulate it mentally. I would estimate this to be the fate of the station's crew. We should search for the air filtration controls and change the outputs to scrub for this specifically..."
Sky sends out a few brief blurts of binary. "Sky says it can't access life support from here and that it's probably in the station's command center. To keep people from tampering with it." Her eyes finish darting across the screen of the datapad casting its glow against her face. Held in her left hand, Chani uses her right's index finger to manipulate the map on her datapad. Another tap after that and her thumbs quickly brush across the screen in quick little taps. "Searching the map for the command center." A beep rises up from the device and Chani glances up and between Qutha, Aryn, and Zandra. "I have a route. I'll head there with Sky. We can stay in touch via comlink and meet up back here." The astromech unplugs its datalink from the wall and retracts it back into the compartment.
It deploys small cables from its chassis next, which grip against the porthole of the hatch and launch itself through once the cords begin to retract towards their housing. The grips let go and quickly wind back up into Sky with a rapid zipping noise before the compartments close again. A quick swivel on its ball and orientation of its head has it facing down the hallway, ready to go and far ahead enough that it can lead the way. It doesn't wait for long. Neither does Chani. Moving forward down the corridor following the astromech, the young Naboo native's head remains on a swivel. Her eyes trace along the walls and the hatches she passes until she reaches the turbolift. A whisk of its door open allows herself and her droid entry. It closes ten seconds after.
The turbolift lurches into motion and Chani tucks her datapad away into the pouch on her right hip. She also checks the canister fastened to her belt with a grasp of her hands and a gentle tilt of the display upwards. The lift comes to a stop and whisks open in a quiet rush of hydraulics. "Hold up a second, Sky." Drawing a compact flashlight from a pouch further along the back of her leather belt, Chani clicks the button along the back and steps forward into the hallway. The flickering lights don't provide reliable lighting, leaving the illuminating beam the only thing that generates constant light. She checks one way and then the next, before finally motioning with a quick flick of her left hand at Sky. "Okay, let's go."
The astromech rolls forward and guides them to the command center, with the only noise being Chani's leather boots tapping rhythmically against the station's polished flooring. Nothing but the flickering of lights keeps her company. On reaching the door into the command center, Chani draws her datapad again and grasps both it and her light in her left hand. Her right reaches forward so her finger can punch in the code Sky provided. More quiet than the turbolift, the door shifts open into the wall, permitting her access. What lays behind it is gruesome. Dead bodies are strewn around. One looks to have suffocated from an adhesive grenade. Others died from blaster wounds. An arrangement of four bodies near the viewport seem to have similar blaster wounds to the sides of their heads. The same side as the hands holding the blasters.
"I think I'm gonna be sick.." Chani says it to no one but Sky. The droid doesn't so much as bleep as it rolls forward. "See if you can't link up here, Sky."
Zandra looks over at Aryn, and then over to Chani. She hooks her datapad up so she can get the maps as well, while she thinks. "I have an idea," she says, just as Chani heads off with her astromech. She takes a moment and reaches again for the Force. It takes a moment to adjust, and it is as always so strange to be looking at things with her vision altered subtly. "This chemical looks like we're walking through oddly coloured water. It pools lower, closer to the ground - I guess it's heavier than air. Security!" She's not sure if Aryn can hear her but figures Chani cannot. "It's - I'm going to follow it." Zan does so, and does not go towards the bridge, but rather towards security, where she can look through the camera feeds for a bit. She has a commlink back to the shuttle - and she puts in << I am going to security to see what's on the feeds. >> Once there, she looks, and looks again. Her vision still seeing that chemical in the air, as the force leads her. << Strangest thing, it looks like the air in the primary lab is completely clear somehow. And the sensors are reporting the same thing. >>
"I will visit the engineering, which according to the map, is upon this same deck. Be careful, Zandra." Chani does not travel alone down the corridor toward the lift; Aryn follows but separates when they reach the lift. She flashes a commlink at Chani just as the hatch shuts to take the Naboo native up. Aryn's course brings her to engineering.
When the hatch slides open, Aryn is greeted by a gruesome sight. She is thankful her mask filters the air because the stench of death is strong. A massive fight had consumed this part of the station with people thrown from the catwalks and splattered below. Haunting bodies with portions missing spill their contents by power couplings and exposed machinery that had been weaponized to crush and grind organics. Perhaps the most alarming sight is the person who hanged themselves from a higher catwalk, the steel cable grinding with each subtle rock from the body.
The sight of the gore is not enough to move Aryn. She has seen a lot as a doctor and has a tolerance for gore, but it does not shield her from the sadness and anger that still swelters in this place.
On her way to discover what systems were available in the Engineering section, she found the source of flickering lights; a dirk had been driven into the console and made to short out with flashes of arcing electricity. Aryn makes a subtle gesture with her hand, using the force to pluck the weapon free from the console then allow it to fall to the catwalk. A small fire is prompted by the removal of the weapon, but the fire suppression system extinguishes it, and power to lighting regulates station wide. No more flickering or flashing, lights take on a dull, half-powered brightness.
Aryn continues onward to discover the environmental control station. She pulls a dead body from the console and begins to bring up the display for air quality so she can insert the correct information to filter the station.
<<"Environmental controls are coming back online, you will hear the vents making a sucking noise.. and in a few moments, it should return to normal.">> Aryn flips several switches to begin the process station wide, scrubbing the facility of this toxic chemical. Each switch is tied to a place in the station and is arranged on an overall map of the place, with labels. She works her way down to the last ones and waits until the lights turn green from red, to flip them back.
<<"Stars and SUN!">> Qutha's voice is shock on the comms to begin with. Minutes after his last communication.
'I'll head down then, Zann - see what I can see' that statement before his silence likely followed with customary mumblings of 'Bother' and 'Dear oh dear' as they so often do. Chased by 'I'll be in contact soon.' his path to another lift easily tracked from security stations watching feeds. Descending down to the science stations.
The exclamation had arisen moments after Aryn's report in engineering, practically on top of Chani's talk to the BB unit. Far more public than her dialogue as well.
On the camera feed, should he be observed, he is clutching at his chest - surprise on the features visible beneath the rebreather. A skeletal figure in simple blue and white researcher's uniform standing before one of the windows. Corpse like, until eyes open within the skull like pits, staring out at the zelosian from the alien's permanently mournful expression.
<<"A survivor...">> added a bit more calmly, on the tail of deep breaths.
The beam of her flashlight cuts through the dim interior of the station's command center. It highlights the carbon scoring on the walls where discharged blaster shots missed their intended targets and tainted the otherwise pristine metal with superheated tibanna gas. The floor has more than its fair share of battle evidence, and congealed spots and small pools of long-dried blood reflect Chani's light at an angle that catches against the smooth, jelly-like surfaces. The astromech with her rolls itself to a dataport located in the main bank of terminals and once again deploys its datalink arm from a blue-paneled compartment along its white chassis. The link juts forward, connecting with and quickly rotating in short side-to-side jerks.
"Okay, Sky, try to locate the air system. See if you can shut it down from here." Chani's voice is distant and husky, not just muffled by the respirator covering her nose and mouth, but dropped in volume. Her light pans across the dead bodies, but never lingers long. A spherical item on the floor catches the most light and the young Naboo native steps towards it with gentle taps from the soles of her leather boots. The leather of them make a soft groan when she squats down, tightening the beige fabric of her pants around her legs and pinning the hem of her tunic and undertunic against her hips in the process. The wide and slender sleeves of the former and latter inch back along her wrist when it reaches out.
Collecting the item, Chani glances over it. It's no perfect sphere, looking as if a valley around the whole middle of the device has opened to expose the coils within. Rising up, her dark gaze settles on the terminal she finds it next to. The extended com receivers jutting up from it signal it as the communications station. "Well, that might explain why the broadcast was so messed up." She tentatively places the item atop a flat surface on the top of the terminal and steps away from it. Her light goes to the viewport again, and the four bodies near it. The viewport itself catches the wide cone of her light and refracts it back at her, making the outside view of space vanish because of the feedback. Chani angles it towards the floor after squinting against the brightness.
Outside is Zsansar IV, the gas giant the colony station orbits. "I wonder if it came from there." The droid does not beep a reply. A sudden burst of noise from the comlink near her left side makes her jump and suck in an audible, short breath. The blond noble is right: Chani can hear the air circulation reverse. Sighing out hard, Chani's dark hair flicks against her shoulders when her head qives two quick shakes. "Sky, download the commander's logs and anything else encrypted and only accessible by this network. We can return it to the New Republic." Her left hand, still holding her datapad, tucks it away and grabs the SoroSuub Hush-98 comlink from her belt.Its lifted towards her rebreather and thumbed on.
<"The command crew is dead. I'm having Sky download all the encrypted files and logs that can only be accessed from the command network."> No sooner has she let go of the transmit button than Qutha's voice comes across saying the word 'survivor'. <"Qutha, be careful!">
<> Zandra says, getting the idea from Chani. "In case there's anything there - did you say survivor? how? who? >> she doesn't expect answers but can't help but ask. She takes her opportunity to go through the security feeds, curious. She hops here, skips there, downloading what she can. It's definitely an interesting story she seems to see. << Security shows someone in the main lab, a Givin, having gas cannisters brought in. It looks like they're researching something.>> She simply reports as she watches. << some data is missing though, maybe I just missed it. or someone scrubbed it? I don't know. Anyway, I see the Givin sealing into the lab, pressurizing and then it's not doing too much but - passing time, maybe. >> She frowns a bit. << I do hope they didn't on purpose release the gas? >>
Aryn finishes with the switches, cutting them over quickly as green lights dominate the map board. Everything has been filtered. Aryn isn't willing to risk exposure though, so she keeps her rebreather on. She listens to the rest of the team over the comms and is prompted to urgent movement when Qutha reveals that there's a survivor. Zandra's research from security suggests they'd been there awhile, probably waiting for people to rescue them. <<"Qutha, I am heading toward Science and Research now. -- Engineering revealed more dead. Gruesome deaths. I have discovered no survivors here.">>
Aryn exits the way she came in, and follows the map Sky had extracted to reach the Science and Research deck. The doors part to allow her passage and she first seeks out Qutha before looking to the science office locked in the sealed labs. She takes a moment to study the person on the other side of the glass, discerning if they intend harm. She detects no such intention, only a mixture of guilty and angry thoughts. She steps to an intercom into the science room and presses a button to broadcast inside.
<"I am Dr. Aryn Cole of the New Republic. We have come to investigate the station and its recent radio silence. Are you okay? Do you need medical assistance? What is your name?">
Qutha is across the corridor from the glass, watching quietly, waiting. Though his and the other's posture seems to suggest there had been -some- momentary dialogue... Introductions? But the additional look with creased brow and tightly closed lips from the Zelosian suggests a lack of insight from him - only comforted by the smoothing of the lines of his features when another comes, one better suited to this sort of interaction. A learning experience to observe.
<"Ferit Biv, Dr. Ferit Biv - I'm fine. The rest aren't. It worked too well."> the givin's expression remains frozen as if wailing in sadness or terror, only the eyes within the sunken pits of the skull like head moving - the jaw within the hardened exterior concealed and making their voice seem to emanate to be heard rather than be spoken.
<"It wasn't supposed to go this far. It was supposed to create fear... not violence."> the scientist's head bowing slightly, eyes disappearing as lids closed, giving Ferit an appearance of the dead reanimated.
<"We were going to be rich... selling it to the Republic; to use against the Order.">
After the droid warbles an announcement regarding the status of the downloaded information, Chani quickly follows it up. "Sky, pull up camera feeds and any audio that you can get. Display it on the main terminals here, where you're plugged in." Chani crosses the distance to the bank of consoles and sets her flashlight down atop it, bottom against the surface and emitter facing upwards, so that the light creates a large cone on the ceiling that illuminates the space around her. <"Sky and I will stay in the command center. We can shut anything down if it happens, or whatever else is necessary."> Half a moment later, she looks towards Sky. "Record everything and download that, too." She steps back slightly and watches the screen.
Zandra sets the download going from security. She pulls the prime lab audio/video front and center so she too can watch what is going on there. After a moment, she downloads what she can from there too. Similar to Chani, she's getting what she can, but in her case it's from security rather than the bridge. << "I'm downloading whatever info I can find here in security, including the A/V feed from the lab,">> she tells the others quietly.
<"I see. Unfortunately, whatever has transpired has led to the deaths of those on board, Doctor. Our team is responsible for restoring the station to safe conditions, which we have accomplished. Now our mission will be to transport you safely to the New Republic to discuss what happened. I cannot promise anything but fair treatment. Doctor, if we release you from this lab, will you comply and come with us?"> Aryn stands easy, her expression neutral and calm, with her hands clasped at her lower back. <<"Understood, Chani-- and understood, Zandra.-- Chani, can you get a message out to the New Republic to send a response team to the station?">>
<"Yes... yes..."> Ferit's head nods, plated brow touching the transparent metal, tapping against it with a dull thunk. <"We can go... Yes. We can go. You can explain and I can explain."> the eyes appearing again staring at Aryn.
A rattling sound, a rasp like a dowel being raked up and down a washboard. One hand that looks like bare bones from carpals to phalanges slapping against the transparisteel. Body shacking in staccato spasms that come and go in waves matched to the crackling coming from Ferit. The other hand remains with a slender finger on the comm button, <"We still could... We could sti-hi-hi-hi... still sell it to the Republic. Imagine what it would do to an Order base? If released into an Order ship... We could destroy them with terror! We could watch them tear themselves apart and finally be done with this war! And we could be RICH by saving the galaxy!"> the voice growing more strained, higher pitched, the rasping sound infecting the voice, the shaking of the body giving the reedier and reedier voice a steady vibrato before speech is lost to a peal of excitable laughter garbling the final words, <"I killed them all! But we can make them martyrs! Not victims!">
The door to the lab sweeps open with a hiss of pneumatics before the givin practically tumbles out. "Yes! Take me back... We'll show them! They'll see! This is how we'll save the galaxy." their entire demeanor growing more and more unhinged until they collapse - clutching for limbs or cloth. Tumbling to the ground as if the weight of all the blood is crashing down on them.
<"I don't think so, Aryn. I found something next to the communications terminal, some spherical device. It may be what caused the broadcast to mess up. I can try?"> Her attention turns from the displays showing the video and audio and she moves over to the communications station. She stares at it for a long moment. "Actually, Sky.. Send a message to the New Republic requesting a hazardous response team. Then record what I say next to broadcast as a repeating beacon." Chani sets herself in front of the extended communications receivers. "Attention. Attention. This is the New Republic. Do not attempt to dock with this station. Do not attempt to approach. Stay clear of this area." She glances over to her astromech. It beeps a moment later. <"I set an emergency broadcast up. Sky is downloading all the video and audio we just captured. We'll meet up in the hangar soon.">
Zan listens and there's a smile across her face. <<"Good ideas, both of you,">> she says softly. Just that. Then there is silence from the violet haired Jedi, as she takes in and starts to process what they have just learned. Troubled, her expression becomes, and then she sighs. <<"Right, I think the hangar is the next best location for all of us, and then maybe - some place clean and - at least not fear and anger filled.">>
"You want to calm yourself and relax; everything will be alright." Aryn's gloved hand made a subtle swipe from right to left, her fingers oriented toward the Givin. She extended her control of the force to penetrate the Givin, impose her will to calm him, and ease this burden if only temporarily. She gestured for Qutha to come forward and help the Doctor up. "We should take him to the vessel whilst we await the New Republic relief. Come along, Doctor." Aryn clasps her hand at her lower back again and begins to walk only after she's observed the Givin comply and move with Qutha. <<"We have Dr. Ferit and will be returning to the hangar shortly. See you ladies there. Good work, team.">>
