IC - Alien RPG - Priority One

[Hemnon]

With time passing on, the first of the 3-4 days of travel goes by and it's time for the fresh new morning shift. So far nothing has gone wrong with the ship, no error reports or reactor core fluctuations. For now it seems like everything is going as expected.
Illyana Quark was already sitting at the dining table in the small eatery place where everyone could get either ready-made meals, or various types of dry-goods, like different types of very bland cereals, a non-dairy type of milk (most likely made on some sort of nut, like almonds), quick thaw cornbread, etc.
She was personally busy buttering up a half-through cut cornbread square-loaf and adding some sort of jam on it.

(you all need to tally up having spent on your food for lunch and dinner the day before. Prefab meals cost 10 bucks, if you wanna go with something like a bugjuice protein drink instead, it's 5 bucks, If you just ate a candybar or two for lunch yesterday, then they cost between 2-5 dollars each. if you want carbonated deverages like sodas and such, then it's 2 dollars per can. Or you could just drink water, re-re-re-recycled water that is. Whatever amount of coffee you want/need is free of charge~ we are gonna ignore effects like gaining stress from coffee, unless you want coffee at the breakfast table, then you'll have to spend around 5-10 minutes of restfulness to lower that stress by 1. There's no loss to the ship's food or water supply rating, it's stocked for months if need be, longer with rationing. So all in all pay for lunch and dinner the day before, and choose what you want for breakfast. just about anything 'food' is a prefab meal and is 10 bucks. You technically only need to eat once or twice a day, but to stay healthy, 2-3 meals is best. Note what you've purchased, since it'll be deducted from your salary in the end of the job upon receiving payment.)

[Monsterpoodle]

'how much for a meal! Typical company, we are out here getting salvage potentially worth millions of creds in a ship with enough food to fly to the next system and they eere charging for meals.. Screw' em. Bugjuice all the way. '

[Haval]

'how much for a meal! Typical company, we are out here getting salvage potentially worth millions of creds in a ship with enough food to fly to the next system and they eere charging for meals.. Screw' em. Bugjuice all the way. '

Robert has long been resigned to how the company operated. 'I believe they call it the poverty trap. The prefabbed **** isn't great either but at least it feels like a meal.' For all that Robert hasn't had that much to do during the trip he will absolutely get coffee for breakfast. It was always possible that something would come up that he needed to be properly awake for.

After Robert sips some coffee, 'So...there's no still no sign that there's anyone else out here?' If there had been any communications or additional signals detected Robert assumed he would have heard about it already. 'How close are we to the derelict? It would be nice to know if it's still stable enough that we can dock with it without having to go outside.' He'll gesture vaguely towards the hull. 'Never had to EVA before.'

[Lycan 01]

Nix has practically lived in the cockpit for the last few days, mostly keeping to herself and occasionally venturing out to find food or use a restroom. She's primarily been keeping an eye on the ship's systems, sensors, and bearing during the journey, as well as learning and familiarizing herself more with the controls and displays. If the company picked her for this mission, they'll probably pick her for more after this, assuming things don't go horribly wrong. Might as well get in as much experience as she can right now, when it might be useful later.

Trudging into the mess hall, the young pilot's eyes seem a little more sunken and dark-circled. She's been eating light, only spending 20 bucks a day on mostly snacks and a half-decent meal with lots of free coffee in between, both out of penny-pinching and stress dulling her appetite. She makes her way over to the coffee machine, fiddling with it (within company parameters) to make her batch as strong as possible. Skipping the sugars and creamers that the company would no doubt nickel and dime her for, she makes her over to join the fellas at the table they're sharing. She nods to Ilyana as she passes, not saying anything but at least acknowledging her to be courteous. Sitting down with the boyz, she takes a sip of the steaming coffee, before grimacing a bit - whether its from the taste, heat, or general sour mood, its unclear.

"You know, I've been thinking..." she grumbles, before pointing at Robert. "From what you said, this ship we're going to snoop around on... MU/TH/UR detected gravity jump signatures, so it can't have been drifting around out here for too long. Must have been a recent arrival, or 'recent' in the sense of space travel. So, it arrived here on its own power and probably crewed, rather than a long-dead ghost ship slowly drifting in from outside the range of the system scanners over a period of months or years. Point is," she scowls, "Somewhere between that ship getting to the system and the company hailing it, something serious had to have happened to it."

A wry little smirk flashes across her young face. "So, who wants to place some bets? I'm thinking... Explosive depressurization from a meteor to the cockpit or something, vented most of the air and crew out of the ship in one quick pop," she says with a click of her tongue for emphasis. She takes another sip of her coffee. "Other options... power overload from the jump, ship arrived dead in the water, no lights, comms, life support... just a slow death in the dark..." she murmurs, before flashing a grin. "Or maybe life support failed before or during the jump, and the ship already had the coordinates locked in. Dead Man Trigger sort of thing, like a giant flying coffin," she muses aloud.

She then sighs, and takes another sip of coffee. "Gallows humor aside... this whole thing is starting to sit a little unwell with me. Seriously, if it was recent enough for the grav jump to still be detected, I feel like we need to be especially cautious in our approach. Give it a full external look over before we send anyone over, before we attach our ship to what may be a giant floating bomb for all we know." She frowns, before glancing at Jack. "You know your stuff pretty good. Got any experience with space walks? Think we could maybe float a scout or two over with enviro-suits and try to open the airlock manually, maybe get an idea of what's going on before we tie our ship and whole crew to it?" she asks uncertainly.

Admittedly, Nix is still pretty young and inexperienced in the ways of salvage work. Her forte is piloting and knowing all the things that can go wrong with a vehicle or ship and how to quick-fix them. The actual complexity of stuff like space walks, getting aboard abandoned vessels, and actually doing a recovery job is still a bit above her head. Though it sounds like she's eager to learn and discuss it, at least.

[Haval]

'Maybe some sort of virus? It left too many of them too sick to answer comms. Which might mean that there are survivors in their sickbay.' Robert grins cynically, 'That might be the most optimistic possibility.'

'Easy enough to think of them being unlucky enough to hit debris or an asteroid. Anything that was big enough to puncture the hole and small enough that they never saw it coming. It's almost like space is incredibly dangerous.' Robert looks pensive, 'If the ship has depressurised it'll be easy to tell when we're close but I imagine it'll be a hell of a mess inside. Can't say what that'll do to the salvage either.'

[Hemnon]

Illyana nodded back at Nix with a brisk, wide business-smile, sipping at her own mug of company-paid coffee... Technically speaking, she wasn't official for this job, so if any of you were very policy-minded, you could point this out to her.

With nothing else really happening, the next few days goes by in what feels like an eternity to some, and rather quickly so to others among you. No issues seems to have cropped up, although the constant location-beacon ping (when the comms were turned active on it's signal) were ominously repetitive and singular, so to speak. Still no radio transmissions beyond the passive beacon itself, no IFF-ID signature, no nothing.

(Everyone, you gain a Plot Point, please add this to your charactersheets)
---------------------------------
... A few days later - Arrival at Derelict

The Derelict vessel seems to be of a class of spacecraft just one size category above Your G Class Corvus Craft - And M-class Arlington Vessel. It stands around 300 meters in length (a good 6 times the size of your own Corvus vessel).
Now what's the price of such a vessel as a standard purchase-cost? Oh just a nice 28 million. And that's without taking into consideration any further additions that might have been made, if there's any cargo on on board worth something, etc. etc. Looks like quite the jackpot since these types of vessels are not exactly rare, but they are the sweetspot for any enterpeneurial moneyman (or woman) since it is neither too oversized for common use, but still big enough to haul big cargo loads and carry a functional amount of crew (on average 7-9 people).
With a percentage-salvage payout, you'd each potentially rack in a healthy 500.000 dollars EACH. And that's if it's just the vessel itself, in functional condition and no one onboard that can claim rights of ownership!

Your Medical Doctor Android, Galen will stay behind on the Corvus.
---------------------

So yeah, you've all arrived, please count in the next 3 days of food purchasing - remember you need to each what is collectively a value of 2 meals - however you want to explain this is up to you, with protein bars, bug-juice shakes, pre-fab meals, etc. Just like prior.

Right now, the M-class vessel seem to be on total blackout, nothing but auto-lighting seems active on the outside. You can try and dock with it - which will require a Piloting Roll to do this without issues cropping up. Or you can mag-clamp onto the hull of the M-class vessel with cabling and do EVA'ing instead.
There's still no active response from the M-class vessel as you approach it.

[Monsterpoodle]

Jack ponders the idea of a vessel. In his experience if something goes wrong in space it is usually fatal but someone told it where to go. Maybe people had it all wrong. Maybe it got sent here precisely because it was the butt end of tbe universe. If you had mechanical problems you wouldn't come here. Maybe the crew were on the run. Didn't matter though, he knew how s**t worked. Everyone else on board was a suit. He would be the one knocking on the giant tomb..

[Haval]

Robert is taking no comfort in the lack of obvious answers to what had happened here. 'No signs of damage and it has some power still. I suppose that doesn't mean it has any air.' This would at least be an explanation. 'Short of finding an external window we're going to have to take a look inside. I suppose if it was on fire or something and likely to go up when we get too close it would be hard to miss.'

Spoiler: ooc

Show

Going to try and contact the derelict's Mother now we're closer. Doesn't mean I'll get a response obviously.

Wits + Comtech if it helps (5+3)
(8d6)[29]

See ooc

[Hemnon]

Robert's attempt at contacting the M-class vessel went silent in response. He would also very much know that the issue is NOT from his end. There's just no one that responds on the other end, not even an auto response of message-recieved from the Ship AI that really should be on board.

This would mean the ship is either fully 'dead' in the way that not even enough power was sustained to keep the AI running as well. Sure the ship could potentially be in silent running mode with only essential powering remaining active - like 'ye olde freezerinos' (aka. the Cryosleep pods), artificial gravity, regular lifesupport systems, etc.

[Lycan 01]

Nix scowls as she surveys the scene before her, gently coaxing their own vessel to stay a safe distance from the derelict. "I don't like this..." she grumbles. "A ship this big, this expensive, this heavily crewed, just floating dead in the water? No distress or F-F-I or AI response? I don't like it all."

Fidgeting with the controls, she debates pulling in a bit closer, but decides to hold at a distance for the time being. The hairs on the back of her neck are starting to stand up. "Either something went horribly wrong while they were already in transit here... or whatever happened must have sent it into some sort of auto-protocol to bring it to the nearest system on what little energy it had left before the power frizzed out completely. Crew is either in the deep freeze, or they're all deep fried. My money is on a flash fire..." she says, scowl deepening. "My dad used to tell me stories about how humans first flew, and he said one of the first space ships - Apollo something or another - lost the whole crew to a fire in the crew cabin. Or something like that." She shivers at the thought of burning alive in a flying coffin. "Or maybe the oxygen and other life support systems bugged and they had to reroute all the power just to keep breathing as long as they could. Either way, I'm not too keen on docking use directly with it. Seems like a great way to tie ourselves to what could be a floating coffin, floating bomb, or... I dunno, maybe some sort of crazy pirate trap? Either way, I think sending someone over on a space flight might be the best course of action."

She scans the crowd of crew members, working her jaw thoughtfully. "You guys want to put it a vote? Space walk, or airlock dock? We're all in this together, might as well make it a democratic decision on how we approach it."

[Haval]

'What kind of clock are we on anyway?' Robert said thinking of their supplies. 'We can afford to be a little careful.' The idea that the derelict might be full of ash and bodies meant that Robert was in no hurry to go over there. 'Space walk. If you're right I'd like to think that we could keep a safe distance from that thing, at least until we get to the airlock and see what the problem is.'

[Monsterpoodle]

Jack shrugs.. "any radiation spikes? If nyet then fly close, look for external damage. If nothing, go airlock."

[Haval]

Jack shrugs.. "any radiation spikes? If nyet then fly close, look for external damage. If nothing, go airlock."

'As long you go first either way.' Robert replies. 'If one of us was going out onto the hull I'd rather it was someone who knew what they were doing.'

But it was a fair point about radiation leaks. Robert will do what he could to double check.

[Monsterpoodle]

"of course. Ship is very heavy. For heavy objects you need a Jack.."

[Lycan 01]

Having only gotten input from two of her crewmembers, Nix decides to put a plan together. "Alright, so here's the plan," she says, slurping down the rest of her coffee. "We'll give it another flyby, just to make sure there's no other damage we've missed. MU/TH/UR hasn't mentioned any radiation, but there's still plenty of other risks that may be aboard. If there's no signs of any trauma or major red flags, I'll inch the ship in close, just shy of docking with them. Maybe hook the umbilical or some tow-locks, that way we can break off in the event of an emergency, but there's an extra safety net for our space-walker and it'll be easier to fully lock on once the coast is clear. You-" she points at Jack, "Bebop over, scout out the airlock and see if there's any immediate sign of danger. If the coast is clear and the air is good, then you hop back, we fully airlock, and most of the crew comes aboard. Sound good? Good."

Having put together a plan from everybody's suggestions, Nix then heads back to the cockpit. "Alright boys and girls, time to get the party started..." she sighs, her hands starting to dance across the control panels as she bites back the rising nervousness and dread. Something about this still feels wrong. Like she's missing some important clue or red flag...

Spoiler: Pilot check

Show

Pilot check! Dice pool is 8 - 3 from Piloting, 5 from Agility.
(8d6)[4][2][6][1][6][6][3][6](34)

[Haval]

To Jack, 'Appreciate the enthusiasm.'

'As I said, I don't think we're in a hurry.' Robert says tentatively 'No reason not to be careful.'

[Monsterpoodle]

Jack goes and makes sure his gear is ready to go..

[Lycan 01]

Nix maneuvers the ship around with practiced ease, despite not having much actual practice. Her dad had taught her the basics, and things to keep in mind. Inertia, three-dimensional awareness, and most of all, patience. With a few taps of some buttons and a gentle twist of the flight stick, Nix sends their ship in a slow, gentle spiral around the derelict. Now that she's had some practice and hands on experience, she has a pretty good feel for the ship. Old fighter aces in the dawn of flight had usually possessed a killer instinct of sorts, strangely at home behind a throttle and able to feel and understand the aircraft around them better than most. Nix, it seems, has inherited such instinct from her father.

Hopefully the corporate suit is paying attention - this sort of skill isn't what you would normally expect to see on a backwater planet, and definitely shouldn't be left to rot there for low wages. Who knows, maybe if the Suit can help market Nix's skills to somewhere more useful to the company, she could pocket a "headhunting" fee, and everybody wins...

"Minimal effort, maximum efficiency," she purrs with a smug grin as they finally slow to a halt just shy of the derelict's airlock. "Should just be a hop skip and jump to get over and let us know if the place is infected with brain eating space worms or something ridiculous like that," she snorts. "Or worse - haunted. Woo-ooo-ooo~" she says, wiggling her fingers as she makes spooky space ghost noises at whoever has the misfortune of still being in the cockpit with her.

Spoiler

Show

I guess I'll use one stunt to look cool, and then pocket the extra +1 to future Pilot checks. Not sure if there's anything I can do with that remaining stunt, unless I can bank multiple bonuses for future use. At least she hopefully won some brownie points with our corporate overseer.

[Haval]

Robert is watching the ship's sensors but is impressed by Nix's piloting, 'You're very good at this. Least we won't bump into anything.' Nix's speculations made him frown, 'If there's ghosts in there we'll vent them into space.'

[Monsterpoodle]

"am in airlock waiting for instructions" says Jack over the intercomm.

[Hemnon]

The flawless piloting by Nix, puts your smaller vessel into a near perfect drift-orbit with the M-class Derelict, leaving the minor readjustments to MU/TH/UR since she'd easily be able to do such a menial task.
It goes to say that Illyana Quark, who had not even the slightest of basic understanding of 3-dimensional navigation, still seemed suitably impressed by Nix's skillful use of the G-class Corvus Space Vessel that you were all onboard at the moment.

After a short while, the umbillical corridor is attached and passage from one ship to the other is possible.

MU/TH/UR reports on the bridge, that she is unable to engage with the hatchway door on the derelict, but manual override does seem possible at the hatchway door itself - although if it'll automatically open as well is another question entirely.

Caution IS advised by her, however, since she is also unable to recieve any other ship-information from the Derelict - no information on oxygen-systems functionality, lifeform presences, etc.
All she can inform about is that there's no active dangers to be detected in terms of the Derelict - Radiation warnings, coremeltdown signatures, etc. None of that. It just seems like a dead, inactive husk of a vessel.

[Lycan 01]

Nix grabs her radio, and calls in to Jack. Presumably he's got one either on his person or built into the suit he's about to go star swimming in. "Alright Jackhammer, looks like we're just about locked tight. MU/TH/UR is showing no immediate danger of the radioactive meltdown sort, but no readings on O2, lifesigns, anything useful like that. Door systems are also dead as my hopes and dreams, so you're probably going to have to manually override it or get creative. I'd suggest that once you get the door open and we've got an idea what we're dealing with, you hop back over here. Don't go running off to claim all the treasure for yourself, alright?" she purrs over the airwaves, the crooked grin audible in her voice even if he can't see it on her face. "Looks like everything's stable. You're clear to go, God and luck be with you," she intones, actually sounding a little more serious as she gives him the green light, and toggles any safety systems or overrides that might otherwise prevent him from exiting the airlock.

[Monsterpoodle]

Altbough Jack had done this before he knew he was no zero-g gymnast. Making sure to keep safety lines hooked and that all indicators were green. He pumped the air iut of the airlock and began to cautiously make his way over to the other ship.

[Haval]

In case there was actually a problem here and Jack needed help Robert will go and put on his own suit.

[Hemnon]

The short umbillical walk goes more or less issue-free. There is some issue with the whole lack of gravity to deal with. There was no air of course, so it was a total vaccuum in the umbilical.

Nowever, due to Nix's expert piloting and such, there was no outstanding issues for Jack, as he finally reached the airlock access-door to the Derelict Vessel. As expected, there was no power on, so the removal of a covered up seal-break lever had to be done before the airlock hatch itself could be pushed open afterwards.

Inside the Derelict, for Jack, it was eeriely silent, only his own breathing in his heavy-duty EVA suit could really be heard, along with the impact from his own steps as he entered the little airlock cycling room. Oddly enough there was no air in the airlock itself either, but it did seem sealed at the other end, so most likely the rest of the Derelict was more than likely still pressurized. How breathable the atmosphere was inside was a whole other question tho, and until power had been re-activated, it'd be rather hazardous to check by trying to just remove the EVA suit.
There's no lighting that seem active, except for some basic emergency lighting that gently illuminates navigational points and signs, nor any other sound of 'activity' from what Jack can notice.

--------------------------------------------

So yes, there's now access to the derelict. At the point you all have access to, it wouldn't be much of a walk (once the second airlock door has been opened) to walk either straight to the reactor itself or straight for the bridge.
You could either try to just brute-force open the second airlock door (which requires a heavy machinery test), you could try to do a manual override if you have the proper tools for it (you need some sort of computer-interface device like a SEEGSON SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC DEVICE for example, or try to do a physical override via some rewiring which does NOT require that device)... or you could potentially pull a power-extension from your own ship and over through the airlock so at least partial power could be established to at least ensure regular functionality for the airlock itself.
Or if you can think of something else to do, feel free to try that as well. But for now, you have the secondary door to deal with and then it's either engineering or the bridge you'd have to head to if you wanna try and re-establish full power to the derelict.

[Haval]

Robert starts to relax a little as Jack made it into the airlock. Over the comm, 'That doesn't really illuminate anything, but as nothing terrible happened to Jack I'm going to take that as a good sign. Getting the internal door open shouldn't be that hard. If it's damaged I want to try and make sure we don't break the airlock getting in. Wouldn't want to vent the whole thing by accident.'

Spoiler: ooc

Show

I have the SEEGSON SYSTEM DIAGNOSTIC DEVICE, which would be a 10 dice test I think. I'll give the others a minute to weigh in.

[Monsterpoodle]

"you want the door opened or will you open it from your end?" Jack uses his torch to look around the airlock.

[Haval]

To Jack, 'Much as trying to power a spaceship using jump leads might be amusing, I think I'll try opening the thing up myself first. I think I can avoid making anything worse. If it is beyond me please do what you can.' To Nix, 'Don't go far.'

Robert doesn't particularly want to go outside, but as he's come all this way he can at least try to be useful. He'll make ready to cross over and join Jack in the derelict's airlock.

Spoiler

Show

So no mobility test needed. Bringing the diagnostic device, motion tracker and flashlight. I'm assuming these are all things that can be clipped onto a space suit.

Going to roll to try and open the inner door of the airlock.
Wits 5 + Comtech 3 + Diagnostic Device (+2 Comtech)
(10d6)[1][6][5][3][2][2][1][5][1][5](31)

[Lycan 01]

"Yeah, opening it manually is best plan, I'd say," Nix muses, working her jaw thoughtfully. "I'm not too keen on sharing our power supply with a ghost ship. If there's something wrong with their reactor or systems, could cause all sorts of feedback issues or leach more power than intended. I'd rather keep our juice to ourselves, just in case," she says, eyes glancing over their own system stats. "You guys just be careful. I don't feel like washing what's left of you out of the airlock and then having to foot the bill for corporate," she deadpans, throwing a little gallows humor into the mix. At least, its hopefully humor.

Spoiler

Show

Not much else to add, Nix is staying in the cockpit. I'll offer a gear manifest when/if she leaves our ship.

[Hemnon]

The inner airlock door seems rather uncooperative - possibly due to the lack of power and only getting any input function from the little powersource from the Diagnostic Device...
And then the override-accepted confirmation showed up for Robert and luckily it seemed that the emergency-pressurization system seemed to work, albeitly with some difficulty, adding atmosphere to both the airlock and slowly to the umbillical corridor as well.

Then a click and mild suction-hiss came as the last bits of pressure was equalized with the internals of the ship, as the Airlock door's locking mechanism got unsealed and the doors tried to open before failing to do so, getting stuck with barely a crack between the door opening. It should easly enough to forced open the rest of the way though.

Inside, you'd find yourselves in a dark, dank ship-corridor at the airlock entrypoint that had a left and right passage, each big enough to allow a single EVA-suited person walk around with relatively ease.
Left leads towards the bridge, Right leads towards the Ship's Power Generator in engineering.

Everything is quiet, except for the odd vent-hissing and what sounds like a distant 'thrumming'. Beyond that, there's no activity, no signs of life, barely any power seems present with just emergency-lighting giving everything a red tint to it along with the 'directional signs' being illuminated for air in navigation - But beyond that the derelict appears totally dead.