Log:Rescued From The Brink
Rescued From The Brink
OOC Date: July 22, 2019
Location: Somewhere in the Outer Rim, between Bespin and Utapau
Participants: Aryn Cole, Palena Maris, C-3PO
Deep in the Outer Rim, somewhere between Bespin and Utapau, a stranded ship transmits a distress signal. It repeats, over and over, with the same few sentences. The transmission is garbled in some sections, but the voice is female, and sounds calm instead of panicked. <"May ... this is the Forg ... all systems are critical ... life support ... seventy-two hours ... send help."> The craft itself drifts through space. It's hull seems unbreached, save for where a cargo bay door is stuck open. Containers, listing in the same direction as the vessel, create a psuedo-minefield around it. Red beacons on pylons blip with the same on-off frequency spacers know as the code for send help. What exterior viewports can be seen seem dark.
A Helix Interceptor Light Freighter emerges to real space in a flash of brilliant blue. Contrails from sub-light engines glow in contrast to the dark void in its wake when the freight begins to move. It takes some detailed scanning to locate the drifting ship, but with the aid of search lights and external sensors, the Rainstorm moved to a parallel position. When it moored to the side of the craft, both vessels shook.
"Good heavens, are you certain you wish to do this alone, Lady Aryn. There are numerous people we can call; there's no need to expose youself to possible danger," rattled the nervous C-3PO. "They've got a limited amount of time, 3PO. It's now or not at all." Both droid and human jump when the sound of a drifting container hits the exterior hull of the Rainstorm. A slow, unnerving grind follows as it scrapes over the top to continue slowly into the void. Aryn tries to steady her breathing and finds some measure of calm. "Be ready to fly away should the worst happen, 3PO." Aryn activates her scout armor, the helmet a custom design that unfolds along the back of her neck and clamps in place around her head, concealing her face behind an emotionless mask with glowing purple eyes. <"Open it.">
The doors open, and in she goes.
The ship the Helix Interceptor Light Freighter has attached to looks dead on the inside. Loose items are scattered throughout the corridor, and nothing but emergency lights in a dim red seem to be present. Multiple paths split off from the central area the ship's docking nodule lets out into, but only one of those is lit in the dim, emergency red. The rest are dark. Indistinguishable under the illumination provided, the floor looks covered in some sort of substance. It's long-congealed from the lowered temperature of the ship. It's not as cold as the vacuum of space, but it's clear that if there are survivors, they have abandoned the head in favor of getting more oxygen. Even here, it's present, though in low amounts. The carbon dioxide scrubbers are not doing their task as effectively as before, causing the amount of it in the air to rise towards dangerous levels.
<"Start record."> Aryn states as the HUD in her helmet begins to adjust to the low-light. A slow walk is adopted in favor of carelessly moving forward. A glance to the decking leads Aryn to side step, looking along the remnants of something long-congealed. <"This place is a mess."> It's said as she steps over debris, then moves further in. Oxygen levels here are low, leading to her to believe that they must be nearer to the core of the ship. They do not have long. A shoulder lamp attached to her back comes to life and Aryn adjusts the cone of light to focus ahead. <"Hello?! Anyone here?!">
There is no immediate answer to Aryn's question. The ship is silent, save for the barely-there hum of what power remains in the engine core. It's so subtle that not even the deck plating is providing the usual, gentle thrum one can so often feel in the feet when aboard a ship. Nothing in the room changes. The light stays dim red. The corridors stay dark. All save for the one, which curves off out of sight to lead deeper into the ship. Aurebesh plating drilled into the bulkhead states the corridor leads to the galley. The congealed spots on the floor seem to create a trail straight for one of the unlit ones. It's plating details that that hallway leads to the cargo bay. The bulkhead is shut and sealed off. All of a sudden, a muffled clattering comes from deeper within the ship. Down the corridor that's lit.
Aryn follows along the corridor where the lights are still on. She can see the congealed trail, but its last destination and Aryn's destination seem to be two different places. She thanks the stars for that, but doesn't count her kath pups yet. A muffled sound earns her attention and she turns her body from facing the sealed hatch of the cargo bay. <"Hello?"> She calls out foolishly, suddenly reminded of some horror holo-flick. This thought sets her nerves off, and she instinctively reaches for the lightsaber hilt attached to her belt and hanging from her side. Careful steps lead her further in, down the lit corridor and closer to the sound.
Like before, there's no answer. Aryn's footfalls are met by nothing but their own reveberation off the corridor. There are signs of activity in this hallway. Exposed panels and pulled out wiring suggests someone's been at work, because the wires aren't ripped to shreds. They look neatly cut and spliced together. There's no congealed trail here. The deck plating looks dry, if marred by countless years of booted feet scuffing and stomping across it. Winding to the left, the corridor stretches on, but the lights don't. They stop halfway down the ceiling, and seem to come to a stop before a door on the port side. The beam of Aryn's flashlight casts the darker hallway beyond into relief, but there's nothing of note. Just ship walls and more doors.
Aryn arrives at the hatch on the port side of the ship. She searches out a terminal to try to open it and finds where wiring has been cut. If she were to guess, it could've been power-reroutes, but she couldn't be certain without a technical manual in hand to compare. She spends more time seeking out a terminal to try to open the doors, but before that, she searches out the current state of them. A silent thought surfaces, and she whispers to herself. <"I wonder if they sealed this from the other side..">
Unlike most of the rest of the hallway, the door pad to the port side door seems untouched. It looks to be in perfect working condition, with a little red light displayed near the top, above the touch panel itself. The pad is worn from years of use, with a slight concave shape where hands have touched it repeatedly over time. Otherwise, it looks to be entirely in functional order. Before Aryn can do anything with it, the door rushes open, exposing three people to view. They're all dressed in EVA suits, and the helmets for them are arranged on the table they're huddled around. A fourth helmet sits on the table, too. It's warmer in here than in the rest of the ship. The crew have set to using some of the cooking equipment to generate heat. It's obvious from the state of them, though, that they know they're low on air, and the EVA suits are their last-ditch effort to have as much oxygen as they can before they expire. A brown-haired male rises from the bench along the table and fixes Aryn with a wary look. "Are you here to rescue us?" From the way he regards her armor, it's clear he's not sure if she's friend or foe.
<"Yes."> She replies, her voice accented. <"I'm docked with your ship. I don't think you have much juice left in your vessel. Grab what you want to bring with you, and I can bring you to a port of your choice."> Aryn holds her ground for now and hooks her hand over her belt, wher her palm rests atop the hilt bottom of her Jedi weapon. They cannot see her face, but it's affixed with a wary look too. She is hoping that by doing a good deed will keep them from attempting a bad one to take advantage of the situation. There's always danger in taking a leap of faith.
The man with the brown hair watches her attach something to her belt. He's unsure of what it is, but he's ruled out a flashlight given the one mounted on her shoulder. He betrays the presence of his companion around the blind corner by glancing at them, and a sigh of frustration sounds from someone out of sight. "Just point at me next time, Yoz. That way they know where to put the blaster shots through the kriffin' wall." A piece of metal pipe is tossed down onto the floor just in front of the open door, causing a loud rattling. It's not unlike the muffled sound Aryn heard before, back in the main hub of the ship. Seconds later, a woman follows the pipe, landing on her feet with a grunt.
The EVA suit is bulky, but her helmet is off, and she settles her dark gaze on Aryn's face. Like the rest of the crew, she looks grimy, and a little worn. Dark circles under her eyes hint at a lack of sleep. "Well, guess we've got no choice to but trust you, now. Hopefully you don't have a bunch of friends waiting to blast us when we step out." She seems the defacto leader of the group, and that's made more apparent by the way she glances back towards them. "Grab your bags. Let's get off this drifting deathtrap." Hers? Hers is in hand. She looks back at Aryn. "Lead the way."
<"You got it."> Aryn turns then and starts back the way she came. She initiates her comm back to the ship, but her voice isn't heard through her helmet like it had been when she spoke with the survivors. <<"Threepio, I have survivors with me. We're coming back to the ship now.">> Threepio answered back. Meanwhile, it seems like Aryn is quietly leading them back. Her concern is their immediate danger; getting to know them can follow once they're safe.
The survivors aren't hot on Aryn's heels, but they are following. They file, one after the other, still in their EVA suits with their helmets tucked under one arm and bags in the other hand. They all seem to pointedly ignore the congealed stains on the floor, and instead focus forward towards the dock nodule. Nothing of incidence happens, save for a slightly hurried pace once they reach the central hub. They seem all too happy to get off the ship they've been in, even if where they're going is a giant question mark. Like the woman they follow, they have no idea if she can be trusted, or what might be waiting for them on the other ship. All they have is the hope that someone will do right by them and not make their lives worse in a bad situation.
Aryn steps carefully and moves back to the docking hatch. With an easy tap, the door spirals open and reveals a warmer, well put together luxury craft. There's a weapons and armor rack on an adjacent wall, and a golden droid with yellow eyes. "Oh, Lady Aryn.. please hurry in. It's time we detach from this dreadful thing before its drifting cargo breaks the control cabin's viewport!" Aryn steps inside and waits for the others to follow. When they are safely aboard, she triggers her helmet to retract, and it reveals a young face with bright blonde hair and blue eyes. "Welcome to the Rainstorm. You'll find it warmer, with more air, and comfortable. We'll be detaching from your vessel, and jumping out of this location. Just let me know where you want to go."
While it doesn't take them completely off ease, the survivors seem to lose some of the tension in their shoulders at the sight of the ship they transition onto. A fretting protocol droid and some mention of 'Lady' seem to help. "What are you, some kind of noble or something?" The question comes from the woman. Disembodied as it is, coming from behind Aryn, she might recognize it as the one over the distress signal. She certainly has that sort of calmness about her tone that her compatriot, Yoz, did not. His voice had been trembling. Even now, the other three seem to be jerky. Not the woman who'd been wielding the pipe. She may look as haggard as the rest of them, but she seems to have her bearings a little better. "Relax, golden boy," she starts.
"Those are empty containers. You could practically flick one with your pinky and it'd go rolling away." When Aryn comes to a stop and detaches her helmet, they're each able to get a measure of one another. In proper lighting, the dusky tone of the woman's skin is easily seen. It's many shades darker than the pale face that's revealed to her. She studies it for a moment, if the quick flicks of her rich, brown eyes are any indication. "We were on our way to an asteroid field near Utapau when things went wrong. Our port of origin is Bespin. No ship and no cargo to take back to it, so why don't you just take us where you're going? I think all of us prefer anywhere but here."
