Lars said a quick prayer for the dead over the coms. "Brothers and sisters, I think it's clear, but do not open your suits for any reason, nor the suits of the dead. We'll bring one of the dead with us on the way out, but for now let's leave them where they lie. I don't think anything in the freight area is going to tell us anything; let's start moving in. Everyone to the elevator; I'll lead. O Great Glorious Steve, do we have a map of the colony interior?"
Be the first one inside, then look around and inspect the room from the inside. Ask Steve for maps.
The room is large but uninteresting; square, with reasonably high ceilings and no decoration whatsoever. Just a big metal bunker with controls for the outer doors and for the elevator itself. No sign of violence here either, but there are several corpses around, as well as one of those loading machines for the containers. If you had to guess, they were in the process of bringing things into the colony when whatever happened hit them.
Again, I can't do maps, but I can guide you.
Dubley radios to Lars: "I would like to investigate one of the small ships before moving on. Maybe it has some data. You can go on ahead, I'll catch up soon."
Go investigate the small ship that Ben was trying to get into. First try to hack the door open, if that doesn't work try to open the lock with my box of generic tools, and if that doesn't work just tear the door open with my exoskeleton strength.
Search inside the ship for any data or clues about what happened. Also any equipment.
And check if its working, just in case we need to use it.
Hacking fails, so you move on to tool use. This also fails. You sigh in annoyance and just jam your fingers into the seams of the door and tear it straight off it's hinges. You casually toss it over your shoulder before gesturing to Ben.
"After you."
Stick near the shuttle for now, and analyze the slime stuff on the ground. Try to determine what it is and/or what formed it, is it growing, etc. Also analyze the atmosphere if it's possible for me to do that (mainly so I can get IC knowledge of the particulates).
Also keep an eye on the Sods, see if they're doing alright. Do they have suits on?
:I will investigate this slime on the ground just to make sure it isn't going to come alive and eat our legs or somesuch. If my services are required I will be near the shuttle.:
You can't really tell what the slime on the ground is, but it vaguely reminds you of bacterial cultures done in agar. Hmm. You get your knowledge of the particulate, and yes, the sods are suited up.
Ask Steve if he can send a probe or do a spectroscopy scan to check if it's the same atmospheric and goo situation across the planet or if it's localised. And if it's localised, what's its range? I want to know how far we'd have to go to outrun it.
Open some containers and check inside, just in case.
Have foods and other supplies broken down? What about plastics? If so, get a sample.
Anything else of interest in there?
Then go to Lars and go down with him.
It appears to be localized, but the range is quite large. A circular area with a radius of roughly 15 miles.
You pry open a few containers but nothing seems amiss. None of the materials inside have broken down as far as you can see, though it's all non-organic matter, no food. The supplies appear to be mostly metals and chemicals of various kinds, lots of raw metals and barrels of non-organic substances, most of them with content warnings about being explosive or corrosive.
You head over to Lars.
Private channel to Lars:
"Kay then, now that you all made it down well and good, I advise you divide those teams now, so they can do whatever acquainting they need to. Have you decided on going with 2 or 3 yet? Then, I'd finish up whatever you still wanna do up here, then go down with the entire team. Remember that there are still sods up here I can order around if there was anything you still wanted done. They might not be the smartest, but I can watch their cams so that's not a big problem."
sod actions: have some stand around where a shuttle is being opened, rest go look at every body and its position so Miya can make a map of where exactly the bodies are, to try and learn anything from that. Gunnerbots keep up with their aforementioned patrol route.
You move the sods around. As per the body placement, you don't see anything particular in it. It appears they were mostly concentrated around the area between, around and inside the warehouse and the main elevator.
"Hey there Dubley, don't go alone. Buddy system and all that."
Private channel to Lars:If we need to split up, I volunteer to lead a squad.
Help Dubley examine a ground shuttle or whatever the other vehicles are. Also be ready to take a squad somewhere if needed
The shuttle is empty and unremarkable. It appears as though it hasn't been used in a while and is quite clean on the inside. It's small as well, holding only a 3 or so people, maybe 5 if you really cram in.
Thoroughly search the supervisor's office for mention (in notes or datapads) of any off-the-records shipments or unusual happenings in the colony.
Time allowing, also log into and/or hack into the colony's intranet through a connected datapad or terminal. Any indications of what may have happened? What is the last activity recorded by the server logs? And what systems can Tek access in this way?
@Lars "Sir, Flint believes that the placement of the colonists' bodies on the surface may provide hints as to the nature of what killed the colonists. Would it be possible to create a map of the bodies by analyzing the video feeds collected by the sods? Could you perhaps send that data to Tek for analysis?"
The supervisor's notes don't mention anything out of the ordinary; the last recorded thing was to move a number of large containers down into the colony and store them in an internal storage area near the industrial sector.
"Hmm.... this is very odd. Could a microwave weapon do this sort of thing?"
Head with Lars to go into the colony if he is doing so. Otherwise, make a closer examination of a body, and see if I notice anything else odd.
You head to lars and look over the nearest body. You notice nothing that you didn't see before.
Follow Big Boss Lars. See if the bodies inside look to be soupy as well, but no touchy the bodies.
They also look soupy.
There's a sound, a sound like a distant discordant singing, which seems to flow up from underground in a palpable, tingling wave.
Lars blinks, and looks around, only vaguely aware of what has happened.
The massive ball of organs and limbs that is Xan twitches a bit, as though shivering, but seems unaffected.
Tek's eyes water, his nose bleeds and he feels suddenly nauseous.
Dubley doubles over and coughs violently, blood leaking from his gums and spraying over the inside of his faceplate. His eyes, ears and nose all bleed and he barely stops himself from vomiting. His entire body aches.
Yancy looks around, confused as to why several people are doubling over.
Taddock sweeps his gauss rifle around and crouches down instinctively, but is otherwise unaffected.
Flint gets a sudden headache but it dissipates after a few seconds.
Jobasio drops where he stands and doesn't move.
Lyra suddenly wobbles and goes dizzy, feeling all together ill.
Elias Feels extremely dizzy and confused.
Blood oozes from Judas eyes, nose and mouth and he coughs and sputters, unable to get his breath.
Kai drops like a stone.
Ian goes limp and lays still
Ben jerks stiff and then collapses
Alex screams a gurgling cry and then drops.
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Topic: Mission 22: Hero Killer (Read 33940 times)