After waiting for the Kingsman to arrive, the adventurers piloted the ship toward the derelict. Extending the boarding umbilical, Buzz tried his best to line the ships up neatly and safely, only to accidentally scrap the side of the derelict, thankfully not causing any lasting harm to either ship. With the umbilical attached, the crew headed into the derelict.
Once through the airlock, the adventures were smeared with what could only be globs of blood that floated through the air. When they were fully on board, a holographic warning sprang to life, but the footage was of a man with a missing arm that had obviously been attacked by something, screaming and slamming an emergency button on the nearby wall.
Not unsettled by the blood or the screaming man, the adventurers continued to take stock of the room. Alex and Seraphina observed a grate covering a small raceway that carried environmental controls as well as cabling and other infrastructure through the ship. When they opened it and took a look inside, they saw the walls were covered in fine scratch marks, as if something had been scrabbling through the metal shaft. Not wanting to deal with whatever that was at their backs, Seraphina spent some time welding the hatch shut.
As they continued to look around, Seraphina observed that what was originally thought to be dust or sand in the air, was actively wriggling in the blood on the exterior of her helmet. Unsure if this was a trick of physics or if whatever this was that was floating around in the air was moving of its own accord, Seraphina did a quick check of the size of the micron filters they had installed in their air recyclers and did not like what she realized; if their suits were breached, whatever that was could easily move through their filters and air supply.
With the entry way thoroughly examined, Alex opened the only other door out of the entry area and was immediately assaulted by three RAM security robots. Alex shot one to pieces before the other two laid him down with a hail of Needle Gun fire. Max maladroitly attempted to enter the room, and managed to fling themselves into the room while shooting another of the robots, while Buzz lined up and shot the other. Seraphina acted quickly and sutured Alex’s wounds before cauterizing them. Alex, narrowly escaping death, zipped his suit back up and as it sealed itself from the various punctures from the needle gun, he went further into the room.
Alex headed to the next closest of 4 doors in the area they found themselves in, finding what appeared to be a lab. He took a brief look around, but since none of what he saw was remotely in his wheel house, he called out to Max and Seraphina to come look.
Max immediately hacked the terminal and tablet computer found there and discovered the logs of a man calling himself Dr. Williams. DR. Williams had stored a number of video logs here about his experimental combat gennies which he was working on, mentioning that they had “grass seed like burrowing nymphs”, which the ECGs shed which would turn anyone coming in contact with them, into a walking proximity mine. Dr. Williams’ last log indicated something was wrong with “Scott” and that the containment for his ECGs was broken. The last log showed him getting ready to record the warning hologram for any retrieval crews that RAM might send.
As Max continued their research of the material on the terminal, Seraphina heard something click. In the nearby experiment area, which was full of chemicals and material used to do testing of various things, a lower cabinet had opened. Inside, Seraphina discovered the body of Dr Williams, who appeared to have crawled in before bleeding to death. With nothing more to be found in the lab, the group stepped back into the main hallway.
As the adventurers began to discuss where to go next, there was a power surge and all of the lights and systems came on momentarily, then the ship shook and looking out the window, Seraphina saw The Junker get obliterated by the derelict’s main gun. Hastily radioing to the Kingsman, the adventurers were distressed to hear that the Kingsman was disengaging because the derelict had fired upon them as well. The Kingsman did not want to return fire out of fear they would harm the adventures, and so they said they would come back once they received communication that it was safe and the ship was under NEO control.
With no escape route, something in the air, and yet to be seen creatures that may have murdered the crew, the adventurers decided they would check out engineering to see if they could get the ship working again. On their way through the gangway, they first found themselves on the weapons deck. When they stopped and looked into the weapons compartment, Alex saw something slithering around the controls. Not wanting to give the creature a chance to assault him, Alex shot the monsters, with Buzz and Max rushing into the room to help kill any others.
Seraphina examined the dead creatures and determined that they could not be carbon based because they did not show up on the scans for life of the ship. Further, the creatures were small, covered in chitinous plates along with spines, and looked like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Seraphina then moved on to examining the weapons systems. She counted a number of pumped and beam lasers, along with a handful of missile mounts. Believing they would find who had fired upon their ship and the Kingsman, Seraphina and the others took to examining the weapon’s controls, only to find that the ship had been retrofitted with a remote fire system; someone on the bridge had to have fired these weapons.
As a means of trying to make it safe for the Kingsman to come back, Seraphina took action to try and disable the weapon system. As Seraphina began her laborious work, Max heard a noise from across the ship. Looking into the hallway, they saw that another weapon system room was across the hall, because they could see through the open door that had more creatures crawling out from it. Max called to the others to get their attention quietly, and when Max looked back, they saw something much much larger moving out of the weapons room and heading toward the adventures. This caused Max to become very frightened and so they ran to the other side of the room.
Buzz moved to stay out of sight, but got a peek at what was coming through the hall, and managed to not freak out as the extra large, many legged creature headed toward them. Buzz backed into the room and took a position to shoot the monster while Alex and Max went behind a corner to get a good position as well. As the creatures moved into the room, they were quickly dispatched with a significant amount of laser fire.
Fifteen minutes later, Seraphina had finally managed to disable one missile mount. Knowing there were creepy crawly monsters on board and someone likely on the bridge, the adventurers decided that it was not a good idea to stay put and thought it better to try and make it to the bridge.
The first thing they ran into was a floor that had a few more of the RAM security robots that had done them so much harm when they first entered the ship. Not waiting to repeat that experience, they continued on. As they moved up the floors toward the bridge through the airlocks on the gangway, the next thing they passed was a galley which appeared to be where RAM forces security must have made their last stand. There were still no corpses, however there was a lot of debris and signs of carnage. Not wanting to linger, they continued to the bridge level of the ship.
When they arrived, they found themselves in a very small gangway room, with two doors to the bridge. Max immediately attempted to pick the locks on the door closest to them, but was thwarted because the doors were locked with some kind of mechanical override that would not be lifted without intervention in the security room. The adventurers decided that the next best thing was to try and seal themselves into the gangway, and then cut through the door to the bridge.
As Seraphina began the laborious task of trying to weld the gangway airlock shut, Max looked through the small window into the bridge and saw a humanoid creature there. It seemed to notice Max as Max called out but turned its back on Max; as it did, there was a lot of noise from the gangway.
Moments later, the unfinished weld that Seraphina had begun on the gangway airlock door was busted through as the airlock was flung open by two large creatures that vied for space through the doorway. One of the creatures grabbed Max and bound them to the floor while another grabbed Buzz and pulled on him trying to get him close enough to bite and scratch. Alex shot and killed the creature that was holding Max while Buzz shot and killed the monster that had ahold of his leg, but not before it got a good bite of him.
The two large dead creatures were pulled backward through the door by three smaller creatures that were also dispatched by Alex and the others. Looking down the gangway, it was obvious that more creatures were headed up the ship, but in the dim light and narrow frame of the gangway door, it was unclear how many, or how many floors down they were. Thinking the best option was to try and seal themselves into the gangway on the bridge and take their chances cutting through the door, they moved to close the door again.
As they attempted to close the door, three more small creatures came up and sprayed the whole compartment with spines from their backs. This hurt everyone in the gangway turned kill box; they could not stay here. Almost dead a second time, Alex shot a couple of the creatures and Buzz shot the other. Then wounded and realizing that they were going to die if they stayed here. In the moment of peace that followed, it seemed the creatures had moved into the other floors or were otherwise hiding in the gangway. A large commotion from two floors down where the Security Robots were observed seemed to provide them with a window to move and so they headed back down to the ill fated galley, where RAM security forces had also made their last stand.
Once inside, they slammed the gangway door shut and as everyone else retreated into the galley, Seraphina once again began to weld the gangway door shut to try and staunch the flow of creatures into their space. As Seraphina worked, the others hunkered down behind the tables that had been flipped onto their sides to make barriers. As Buzz watched the gangway door where Seraphina worked, he became aware that creatures were coming out of the raceway grate.
A creature sprang onto Max ripping and tearing at the wounds that the spines had caused, almost causing Max to fall down, but Alex managed to kill the creature. Another creature attacked Buzz and as Buzz struggled, Alex once again managed to shoot it. At this point, with the creatures coming in behind them, Seraphina gave up welding the door and began to try and open it again. Once the door opened, Buzz bolted down the gangway to the floor where the commotion had come from, while Alex and Seraphina, who was shouting at Buzz to not run away, managed to kill the creatures that were trying to kill them all. When the smoke cleared and the creatures stopped twitching, Max, Seraphina and Alex followed after Buzz, who was exclaiming that he had discovered the Medical Bay.
Seraphina was more than incensed at Buzz for running away, but everyone had a splitting headache and simply did not have the stamina to be properly angry at his cowardice. In the Medical bay, there was an auto doctor which appeared to have the remains of someone stuck inside it. The procedure that was being performed had not finished and was waiting for a prompt to be answered to continue. Max easily hacked the tablet connected to the Autodoc and found a video of its last procedure, identifying the remains as the body of one Dr. Concheitz. The tablet had a video log of the last procedure which indicated that the doctor was delirious and also was suffering symptoms from whatever was in the air. The last words of the doctor indicated that she wanted to die in the name of science, ordering the Autodoc to discover what had happened regardless of the outcome.
Seraphina reviewed the information the Autodoc had collected and determined the correct drug to fabricate to stop the brain parasites. Quickly fabricating the drug using the drug fabricator in the Medical Bay, Seraphina ordered the Autodoc to self clean and then put Buzz into the machine as the guinea pig. The procedure went splendidly and the Autodoc healed everyone and purged their bodies of the brain parasites. Now all they had to do was figure out how to get onto the bridge and take control of this ship.
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