"Yes sir no joyriding"
Begin checking a nearby vessel for any data or logs. In a careful and methodical fashion.
You've got Three action posts in this thread. Don't do that. Either edit the first one, or strike any older actions through, leaving only the one you want.
You walk over to the nearest ship but find it locked.
Permission to go look inside the colony proper, boss? Won't go inside, just wanna look in the door, see if this mossy shit is inside too.
As long as you don't get too close to the door. No one goes in yet.
Got it, boss.
Walk over towards the colony entrance, stop a few steps from the door. See if I can see the moss or any more bodies inside. Stop if the moss starts acting weird on the way over.
Also ask Steve if he knows of any weapon that would soup-ify people inside their suits.
You join up with lars and note that the mossy stuff isn't inside the colony.
>None that I know of, at least none specifically designed to do this. Theoretically There are several possibilities, mostly related to reality manipulation. It would be very large scale though. I activate my fiber-optic-fur, going invisible, and move towards the main colony entrance. I avoid the suits of liquid, but if there are bodies that look different then I'll stop and look at them.
You join Lars
"Soup. A suit full of soup! Just needs some chunks of potato, perhaps some carrots and onion, and you've got yourself a hearty meal."
Step carefully away from the corpse as Dubley goes to move it.
Use my suit's radio to scan for any radio signals. Ensure the volume is turned to minimum first, then turn it up very slowly once I've found/tuned into a signal. Don't want to learn the hard way that it was sound waves that reduced that poor soul to goop, after all.
There are a few radio signals, but they're all standard automated stuff. Nothing unusual.
"Thank you!"
After getting doodled on by Lars go in investigate that liquidized body Jobasio found.
"Huh, gross. I bet the science folks would want to study this."
Did we bring any artifact boxes big enough to hold Mr. Water Balloon? Either way, load him into the sod's shuttle. Also collect a container of the moss and put that in the shuttle.
Sods came in drop pods. Only shuttle here is yours.
You scoop up some of the moss and find it to be not moss but a thin sort of slime over stone. Very thin in fact, no more then maybe hair's breadth thick. You scoop up some of the stuff and stick it in a container that you then put back in the shuttle.
((pfp))
Brother Lars scanned around quickly.
"Dangerous situation here. Flint, you and three others check the hangar quickly. Nobody open your suit, or the suits of the dead. We're going to be moving fairly swiftly in here, so don't wander too far. Check the area; don't go inside until I say so. Alex and Jobaiso, can you check for any radio signals?"
He looked at Dubley. "Certainly, brother."
Inscribe the White Circle of Algis on the armor and shield of Dubley.
Go up to about fifteen feet from the entrance and look inside. Anything unusual?
((Shaporia, I have Alex as one of our Aux people. Am I assuming correctly? Not really able to check ATM))
You scribble the god sign on various things before walking over to the entrance and taking a look inside. Unsurprisingly, the entrance is not much more then a large room with a huge circular freight elevator in the center. Fairly standard subterranean colony plan. There are a few bodies in here as well, but no signs of trouble or violence.
Get an atmosphere reading with my suit, then just follow Lars while keeping a lookout, begin checking for radio signals, scanning different frequencies to check if there's any traffic.
The atmosphere seems mostly the same as it should be, according to the old data, but there's something off. Certain organic chemicals seem to be hanging around in the air; nothing dangerous but you generally don't find a planet with aerosolized phospholipids just floating around naturally.
Scan nearby bodies and the environment in general with cameyes for signs of trouble or interesting things. Continue to do so as I move.
Also switch Rainbow Cannon to Indigo Hydra mode and see if the heads point at anything other than Sods and Teammates.
Let's see if you see anything around here that I don't. Flint thought to his gun.
Ask Steve: :Steve, is this thing normal?: Flint said, indicating the green things on the ground. :I thought this planet's atmosphere was not suitable for life. This doesn't look like salt to me.:
Go towards the storage area. After carefully looking at its entrance and the cradle for any signs of recent activity (marks on the ground/goo, scorch marks on the cradle that have not been washed away by rain, etc.) or traps, enter along with the rest of my team and start slowly searching it for anything interesting. Logs, diaries, manifests, computers, clusters of dead bodies, suspicious looking containers, all those stuff.
If all looks clear, begin checking the landing pads, vehicles on them and the cradle for any signs of survivors, recent use or anything interesting.
The Bodies, if they can be called that, appear to be spacesuits full of human flesh slurry and a skeleton. Huh. As per the environment, there's nothing particularly of note here; nothing really out of place beyond the corpses and the open door. At least nothing that stands out thanks to your enhanced vision.
>Not suitable for multicellular life. There should be a fairly rich amount of extremeophiles but that slime covering isn't right. It shouldn't be there. "Permission to inspect the dead?"
Tek gestured for one of the sods to come over. "Salutations and comb bless you, space marine. Can you determine if these bodies are arranged in any sort of pattern? Can you produce a map of the bodies or analyze their placement?"
Ask a sod. Cautiously examine the bodies. Leverage medical knowledge to determine the times and causes of death. Don't open any suits.
The sod doesn't seem to listen to you, or can't understand you, or maybe just can't work out how to respond.
As per the bodies, whatever did this appears to have liquified the soft tissue, leaving only the bones. You have no idea what could have caused this; but it probably wasn't an illness. These bodies have some resemblance to those who die of hemorrhagic fever, the disintegration of the body, however the slurry inside the suits is still "Fresh"; not rotted or feasted upon by microorganisms. Even if the suit was sealed, the normal bacteria on their bodies should have done something. It's very odd.
Disembark and stick close to ... Flint. He has the biggest gun and an interest in my survival.
Look around the area and see if I can, in my professional opinion, determine what happened to all the dead people other than 'dun got liquidized'. Don't touch the bodies too much or get very far from my teammates though.
You have no real idea either. It's not like anything you've ever seen or heard of. But you would wager it wasn't natural.
Scan the area for anything the sods may have missed.
I-Is the atmosphere breathable?
Stay a good distance from the bodies and the medics working on them. Keep an eye on the open door to the colony. Notify everyone immediately of any movement seen.
Help out searching the hangar
"We should probably look for data on what happened right? Do you think some of the other ships might have something?"
:Anyone want to accompany me in searching the storage area? Do we have any brave men or women amongst us? Or am I going to have to start ordering you guys? Eh?:
""Yes, I'll help you out with that. Flint right?
Help out in searching the hanger. Take a reading of the atmosphere with my suit if possible.
:Anyone want to accompany me in searching the storage area? Do we have any brave men or women amongst us? Or am I going to have to start ordering you guys? Eh?:
If you're still looking for help, I'll join you.
Help search the storage area
The storage area is much like the rest of the landing zone; there are bodies here, but otherwise it seems completely normal. There are large metal shipping containers, a few oversized forklift like machines for moving the containers, large areas of empty space marked out with painted lines to show where more containers would go; it all looks completely mundane. There are no boxes that have been broken open from the inside, no open vats labeled "Deadly space virus, keep lid closed", no mysterious bloody footprints leading away into the wilderness. Nothing. The bodies show no signs of violence and, eerily enough, look as though they just dropped dead in the midst of doing whatever normal tasks they were up to. There are data pads, tools, and similar things near their bodies, but no weapons, and the data pads reveal nothing either. There's no landing on the big departures and arrivals bulletin board on the supervisor's office wall, no signs that anyone came or left anytime recently.
There's just nothing.
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Topic: Mission 22: Hero Killer (Read 34008 times)