Chapter 5 - Rock, Paper, Scissors

"All clear," Elan reports.

He relays what he sees up ahead.

"No movement, no energy signatures. Let's head deeper into the station.

"Can someone see if there's a station map available? This will be faster if we don't have to go room-by-room, mapping the joint."

He looks to Lola. He suspects she will want to go room-by-room, if only to guarantee no threats to the flanks or to the rear. Well, it's not like Elan had anything else on his calendar.

"I'll keep my eyes open for radio transmissions." It sounds weird to say it like that, but that's what he'll do.

He goes to the first available door and prepares to clear the room with Lola.

Another open door, another infestation within? That odd feeling of deja vu was washing over Lola as she looked up the dark hallway. When she'd been a child her mother had believed that the feeling came from spirits of your ancestors trying to warn you of something. You just needed to listen harder. The Legion didn't believe in things beyond this realm but they also stressed the importance of listening, but to your body instead. Often deja vu was as a result of your senses picking up on something familiar and reacting to it, without your brain fully understanding. Was the handle of the door you were opening ever so slightly heavier than normal? Was there a slight smell of cordite and plastic somewhere in the air? Little tiny things that if you were able to understand them, stopped you opening that booby trapped door. There was no evidence yet that the spiders might be here, but the first clue that they were might not be as easy as some webbing or a dead body. She would need to concentrate.

At least she was better armed now. She'd left her new sniper rifle behind, but availed herself of her equally shiny mag rifle and long slightly curved blade, which was now strapped to her back.
"Let's go."
She started forward down the corridor, rifle held in both hands, looking for any sign of movement or anything strange.

The crew edges forward, all senses, enhanced and natural, reaching out to the surrounding. Elan leads the way, seeing further, the rest follows his lead. The walls are roughly hewn stone, the tunnel almost 10m wide. When they reach the hall, the crew can see two doors towards the left and stairs straight ahead. Above everything looms the large pulley over a hole reaching straight down into the asteroid.
The leftmost door leads to a locker room, deserted as the rest of the station so far and as dark. The second door houses a room with nano forges. It is not directly obvious what purpose they serve, but they are without power and therefore still.
The stairs lead upstairs to a ledge serving as a hallway further into the asteroid.
The station does not look to be in particular disarray or decay. But it is eerily quite, dark and cold.

The lack of disorder in the station is somewhat reassuring to Taelor. If it had been attacked, there would be sign of battle: scorch marks, overturned tables, etc. There was also no sign of the goo spiders. Maybe the station had been purposefully abandoned? She looks at the stairs. "Let's keep going. If we can find the reactor, I may be able to get it going again."

"Agreed," Elan agrees agreeably.

"The mess doesn't look like an explosive decompression. I thought it might have been a last-ditch effort to space an invader. But if it wasn't explosive I wonder if that means they lost containment gradually, slowly."

He looks to Taelor.

"You said the airlock could be closed again, and it had enough juice to flash that error message about missing atmosphere. That implies that the system is online in some capacity; the nanoforges are offline but maybe there's still some squeeze in the batteries. Or maybe we could rig something off a power cell? Maybe a Type A could give us a window of access. Let's look for a terminal to see what systems are still live and if there's any record of what happened here, system logs or the like."

Elan resumes his position on point, moving slowly due to the annoying nature of his vacc suit. But, hey, without atmosphere it was really easy to move quietly right? Unfortunately that blade cuts both ways; Elan has to imagine himself as the predator, not the prey. He proceeds to the stairs that lead upstairs to a ledge serving as a hallway further into the asteroid.

Elan slowly pushes himself towards the stairs at the end of the mining hall. The rush of the airflow and his own breathing being the only sounds he can hear, he gets the sense of being in a simulation. He shakes off those thoughts and pushes forward. The stairs are metal, as is the landing, letting the crew use their magnetic boots to continue almost walking. When reaching the top of the stairs Elan can see two tiny lights. One red blinking one ahead and a constant red to the right. Normally they would be barely visible, but in the almost complete darkness, they are almost blinding.
The walls continue to be the bare rock of the asteroid, but with the occasional metal plating to hold lamps, or other functional decor. The floor is a plain metal grid slightly elevated from the rock. It offers even floor and grip for the magnetic boots.
The landing is a short hallway with a larger pressure safety door to the right and a regular door ahead.
Both are closed. The closer door on the right offers a small panel reading Emergency lock! Restore pressure to open and a small terminal with a security reader.
The other door is also closed, but offers a simple terminal. But upon closer look, the terminal seems to be deactivated and does not react to regular user input.
Above the door Elan can see the source of the blinking light - a security camera seems to try to reconnect to the network, as Elan can see a weak signal emitted from its side, presumably the side housing the antenna.

"It's got juice," Elan says, pointing to the camera. "I know that's obvious from the blinking light, but I can see a weak signal being emitted from the side, probably the antenna."

He turns to the women watching his back.

"All in all, I'm encouraged. If there's a bit of power in the system, and if things are pressurized behind that door" - he points at the pressure door to the right - "then that all seems like good news."

He turns back to the door straight ahead, seeming to decide that it makes sense to tackle that one first so as to not override the pressure door and depressurize everything behind it.

"Taelor, do you think you could power the terminal from whatever's powering the light?

"If that doesn't work, maybe Lola could force it open?" He looks her over, wondering if she has anything that could give sufficient leverage. "It doesn't look like a security door, so maybe your combat knife could pop it open like a can opener."

Taelor floats effortlessly down the hallway, rather than relying on the magnetic boots. She has a wistful smile on her face, the nostalgia hitting her hard. The residential areas of her home had artificial gravity, but much of the tunnels on the outskirts, as well as the connections between hubs, had been in zero-G. Gauging the angle and pushing off was second nature to her and had probably contributed to her skills as a pilot. As she drifts, she finds herself thinking of home and is surprised to find she is missing it. Well, a bit at least. Once we're done here, maybe we can head towards Tecmeda. I wouldn't mind seeing how everybody's doing...

Tecumseh wrote:

"Taelor, do you think you could power the terminal from whatever's powering the light?

Taelor is jolted from her reverie by Elan's question. "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. On it." She activates her mag boots and they hit the metal flooring with a clunk. She makes her way to the terminal next to the door with the camera and uses her metatool to open it. She starts rewiring it, hoping that between her metatool, her dataslab, and her spare A-cells, she can get it up and running. She had left her full toolkit on the Undertow, not wanting to be weighed down by it if there was any fighting to be had, and would be loath to have to go and get it.

"Come on, you piece of shit. Light up for Mama, will you?" she mutters.

It takes a bit of fiddling, especially given the circumstances with bad lighting and clumsy vacc suit fingers, but the feat itself is trivial. Taelor opens the terminal and rewires the power cables into the camera. Additionally, she is manages to override the authorisation requirements and after she is done, the door glides open effortlessly. Just the cables hanging freely from the terminal to the camera are ecstatically not very pleasing.
Behind a door the mess hall appears. It is also a fairly long room, albeit a not as large as mining hall.
At the front of the hall, right before the door, an area with tables and chairs stretches about half the hall. Behind that seems to be something of a recreational area, with a large screen, and various entertainment machines.
The mess hall is... Messy. Not in a sense of bad maintenance and uncleanliness, but rather a general disarray of chairs and tables, as if the previous inhabitants were surprised and tried to get up and go somewhere in a hurry.
On the left side of the room is another pressure door, that was meant to close, but got a blocked by a table and another regular door on the far end of the hall. On the far right of the hall is another pressure door that closed successfully.

Taelor lets Elan and Lola in first, then follows them into the mess hall. "They're really putting the mess back in mess hall, heh," she says, chuckling at her own joke.

Once the others declare the room clear, she moves to check the stuck pressure door, curious to see what's in it. Her guess would be quarters that double as emergency shelter, but it could also be for segmentation of the complex.

If its a dead end, she moves on to the door at the end of the mess hall and tries to get it open.

Elan also looks through the blocked doorway, wondering why a table would be in a doorway. Did it get bumped there during a general pandemonium? Or was it put there purposefully?

"Do these terminals have any system logs available?" he asks the people who know more about computers than he does. Elan can pick a mechanical lock, maybe hotwire a maglock, but he can't interrogate them for answers.

The table seems like it skidded in the way of the door during the commotion, awkwardly placed and leaving the door just enough open to squeeze through. Behind is a hallway that seems to lead the length of the mining hall and a bit further and then bends to the left. Pressure doors lead to the right in three spots and to the left on the far left. The middle right door has a window next to it and through it one can see two med pods and a medical station in the dark.
The door on the left also has a tiny window showing several computer terminals. Around the corner are two more pressure doors, one on each side. The one on the left has a little lightning sign on it the other is plain and windowless. The hallway ends at the top of stairs leading down with a pressure door at the foot.

Tecumseh wrote:

"Do these terminals have any system logs available?"

Taelor shrugs. "Software isn't my specialty. Maybe Graham can take a peek."

Taelor stops in front of the pressure door with the lightning sign: the universal symbol for the generator room. She hopes. "I think this is it," she says. She crouches down in front of the panel and pulls it open. Ultimately, all electronics locks were just gatekeeping the 'open door' electrical signal. If you could understand the circuitry, it was a simple task to send the signal at the right input point. These panels were the cheap, mass-produced kind used to monitor employees' movements and make sure doors weren't left open without reason. It takes less than a minute for Taelor to rewire it and get the pressure door to slide open.

She steps inside, sweeping the room with her helmet's flashlights. The room is occupied by a medium sized industrial reactor and a series of racks holding what she assumes to be the mining base's mainframe. There are no obvious immediate dangers. "Jackpot. I'm going to get us some juice and boot up the mainframe. Y'all can keep going, I'll be fine in here."

Taelor examines the reactor and finds the ON switch. She flicks it. Lights come to life on the machine. A low hum resonates through the floor grating and up through her boots as the reactor cycles up. Emergency lighting fixtures flicker on, finally providing some decent illumination in the generator room. Taelor assumes they are turning on in the rest of the compound as well. Once the reactor's boot up sequence ends and it settles into a steady thrum, she turns her attention to the mainframe. She turns it on and looks for a control station to try and access the station's systems.

Taelor finds a simple terminal, probably for basic system maintenance attached to one of the mainframe's towers. She turns it on and finds that it, of course, is password protected. She looks around, hoping the local tech was unwise enough to leave his credentials written on a piece of paper nearby, but doesn't find any. "Alright," she says, wishing she could crack her knuckles in this vacc suit, "hacker time!" She brings up the command menu and tries to get around the login screen. Her efforts are rewarded with an ACCESS DENIED screen.

Taelor frowns, then sighs. Swallowing her pride, she activates her comms. "Graham, I'm going to need your help in here. The computer's being a big jerk and I need a bigger jerk to put it in its place."

"That's not a very nice way to ask," Graham answers over the comms. His words a chiding her, but his tone is amused. Taelor can't help but imagine him twirling his mustache, despite the vacc suit's limitations. "But how can I resist assisting a damsel in distress. I'll be there shortly."

Graham arrives a minute later. Taelor shows him to the terminal. He smirks at her and says: "Let's put this jerk in his place." He starts typing. Taelor tries to look over his shoulder, but the racks are close to each other and the suits are bulky. She turns off her mag boots and pushes off, floating above him to get an angle. It takes him some time, he starts to swear under his breath, but eventually, the screen shows ACCESS GRANTED. Air starts to hiss through the vents in the walls. Graham looks up at Taelor and grins. "There we go. Simple enough, when you know what you're doing."

Taelor chuckles and shakes her head. "Well done, hackerman." She pushes off the ceiling and maglocks her boots back onto the flooring.

Elan and Lola stand at the doorway like sentries.

Elan looks (and feels) ridiculous in his vacc suit. He's not that big and these generic vacc suits are meant to be one-size-fits-all affairs. He's practically swimming in it, which does not improve his mobility nor his personal confidence.

Lola, conversely, fills hers out confidently. Elan casts a sideways glance at her; she is clearly comfortable on guard duty and has the relaxed-but-ready stance that shows it. Elan goes back to scanning the hallways with his panspectral optics when all of a sudden the emergency lights start kicking on.

"Ay, that's some good work," he comms, maybe even cracking a small smile.

"Any sense of why the system was off? Since it booted back up, does it imply that someone turned it off?"

With the light turning on, even if it is only the dim emergency lights, the station loses some of its claustrophobic tunnel like feel, as the walls are now clearly visible to everyone and ends of hallways appear.
The air pressure is restoring quickly, but it will still be a bit until the air starts to be breathable.

The logs on the mainframe don't yield any new insights. The system was shut down manually a few weeks ago, the time roughly matching the timeline Nazir reported. The terminal however only allows access to the system logs, it contains nothing of communication, log books, or any other information about the day to day on the station.

Nazir starts to visibly get anxious. So far no sign of his father and the signs don't look good. "As soon as the air is back, we must open all the doors, maybe somewhere someone hid." , he says with the hope of the desperate.

Taelor sidles up to Nazir as the crew waits for the air pressure to reach safe levels. "If people hid, it would explain all the sealed pressure doors and the messy Mess Hall. Like they scrambled to safety. We haven't found a single body in the exposed sections, which means they must have gotten to safe sections."

"You know, I grew up in a place like this. Every segment had emergency supplies and water recyclers. People can survive a long time in them." She puts her gloved hand on his vacc suit's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll find your dad," she says reassuringly, hoping he won't be mad if she's wrong.

The return of air pressure can feel a bit goofy. For one, sound returns. It's strange to go from not hearing anything - except whatever noise you're making inside your suit - to hearing the footsteps and movements of the other people with you.

Then there's the suit itself. When it's pressurized in a vaccuum, it tends to puff out, almost like you're surrounded by a bubble. But when the air pressure returns, it starts to collapse and cling to you. Elan's suit is so big he feels like it's smothering him. He eagerly detaches the head piece then slowly extricates himself from the suit so that he can move freely again.

"Ah," he sighs in relief.

"I still think it's possible they evac'd," he says, to give Nazir another ray of hope. "I mean, yes, you would have expected to hear from them via another channel, but system's shut down, the front door's open, and there are no ships parked out there. I wouldn't be surprised if people got out."

Taelor's right that the lack of bodies is hopeful... unless there had been bodies and someone absconded with them. A strange thought, but not out-of-the-question if Brothers Smithes Maintenance was cleaning up an infected population. He'll keep that thought to himself.

Taelor slips out of her vacc suit, laying it out on one of the mess hall tables. If more work, or any fighting, was needed down the line, the added mobility would be welcomed. Besides, the damn things were so clingy in a pressurized environment.

She helps Nazir out with his. "There you go. Now, let's open some doors." When dealing with someone on the verge of a panic attack, it was best to focus them on simple, immediate tasks. Anything to keep their minds occupied. Taelor hopes this'll do for Nazir. "We can start with the outermost ones and work our way deeper."

Taelor leads Nazir to the the pressure door adjacent to the mess hall door she'd hotwired. Taelor takes a look at the panel formerly displaying Emergency lock! Restore pressure to open to see if she can just hit a button. If not, she sighs and pulls the panel open to hotwire this one as well.

"Alright, Lola, let's help them clear some rooms," Elan says.

He goes from pressure door to pressure door. The thought occurs to him to pound on each door first, reasoning that anyone behind the doors might be agitated or on the defensive. Three knocks in quick succession, bangbangbang, to announce his presence and let anyone on the other side know that it was a human coming through. Elan knows that if he had been trapped behind a pressure door for weeks, he'd be jumpy.

Being on sentry duty tended to go in two phases. The heightened tension paranoia, where every nerve was worn raw on your skin, and when you started to drift, your mind on other things. After some experience on patrol, you learned as with most things to try and balance between the two. No one could be hyperaware all the time, but relaxing back and trusting your reactions wasn't the same as getting distracted. The ideal was keeping your mind as empty as possible.

Her suit though not quite fitted for her, had been one that she had been able to choose and modify over the years, and while it could never be quite as flexible as mesh armour, she was used to its limitations and as such moved confidently forward in it, wasting no time considering its weight or even considering its discomfort. The thought only occurred as she glanced over at Elan. It was clear he wasn't well attuned to his. She couldn't have described exactly how she knew this, it was just something she knew looking at him. It was clear he was a civilian, and no shame in that. Its what he was.

As the air pressure returned, and sounds returned to them, she followed Elan's lead and removed her helmet, placing it beside Taelors suit, but kept her suit on. Despite the advantages in mobility, she preferred the protection it provided, especially as Taelor had proven her close combat skills. In a possible confrontation in a tight enclosed space like this, tactical doctrine advised both the heavy support and the scout.

She nodded at Nazir.
"We're in the best place to be right now. We'll find something new whatever happens."

It was only after she turned to follow Elan she remembered she probably could have smiled. Standing a pace or two behind the other, with her weapon still pointed at the ground, but ready she watched as he knocked on each door and waiting before passing through. It showed good sense. If there were people barricaded behind the door, then something suddenly opening could cause them to strike back. The question though was, did any of this look like people who were fleeing from an attack of some kind? There was no trace of laser bolts on the walls, no blood, none of the detritus of war. A disturbance, signs of people exiting very fast perhaps. Could it have been a biological attack? Some toxin that caused paranoia or fear? Or even a localized hysteria that influenced everyone to flee a so far safe looking station.

In between Elan moving towards another of the doors, she looked over at Taelor and whispered.
"You ever seen something like this before? I wonder if maybe seeing those spiders has us presuming something that might be a lot more routine."

Taelor waits until Nazir has moved a little farther away, then turns to Lola. "Abandoned claims are sometimes left unpowered and depressurized, but I'd expect things to be neater if that was the case. I haven't seen any sign of the spiders or flamer use, if they were cleaned up. I think you might be right. Unless they were contained and we're about to let them out." Taelor chuckles.

"Dennis did mention pirates. Maybe they looted the place and then vented it. Get rid of the evidence?" She glances at Nazir. "I hope his dad's alright... It would be awful to have come all this way for a funeral."

Elan and Lola proceed methodically. Knock on door, open the door, secure the room. Starting with the closest door, across the hallway from the server room, they find a small hallway that leads to four holding cells on the right and a small empty room with just a table and bolted chairs, likely for interrogation. All cells are empty and don't seem to have been used lately. It is a mining station afterall. Short of drunken quarrels off-shift, what can possibly go wrong?

Taelor takes Nazir and heads back to where the crew entered the station from the mining hall. That first door now shows a green light and the terminal simply states Open
Tapping on the terminal lets the door slide open with the signature sigh and gives way to a larger storage room which shows obvious signs of people having lived here.

The sigh of the door opening is met with stunned silence. This is what they had been waiting for, hoping for, for weeks now. That said, they had hidden to avoid being rounded up and/or shot by some heavily armored group of unknown origin and it would be nice to not come to harm now.  As the others share nervous looks, Samara hops to her feet and makes for the door, ignoring the whispers and gesturing to stay hidden. Either whoever opened the door meant them ill, or they did not.  As there was no where else for them to hide if it was the former, and there was no good reason to stall if it was the latter, she presses on, narrowly avoiding getting pulled back by her more cautious compatriots.

"Hello?" she calls from around a corner before peeking out. "Oh, hi! I'm Samara. Boy howdy, is it good to see you!" she gives Taelor and Nazir a lop-sided grin. "Assuming of course that your intentions are benevolent."

When the door slides open, Taelor notes the makeshift cots other signs of occupation. This is promising, she thinks to herself, but where are the people? Her question is answered when Samara pops out from behind her cover and introduces herself.

Taelor looks pretty non-threatening. She is wearing her flight jacket and baggy pants. She had packed them into her backpack, in case they were able to change out of the bulky vacc suits, not wanting to prance around in nothing but her armored undersuit. She had her knife hanging from her belt, her void carbine was visible, but securely bound to her backpack, and her thermal pistol was stowed out of sight. Nazir was wearing civilian clothing and was not armed.

Taelor pokes Nazir with her elbow in a 'see? what did I tell you' fashion. She then turns to Samara and grins. "No hostile intentions from us. I mean, I'm not Santa here to hand out presents, but we don't mean anybody any harm. I'm Taelor, this is Nazir. We're looking for his dad. He wouldn't happen to be in there with you, would he?"

Samara is positively beaming at this line of questioning (in part, among other things, because it meant that these people's intentions were indeed benevolent and that non lethal cannibalism was likely off the table), and fails spectacularly at being nonchalant. "If your dad's name is Maynard, Rahim or Teresa, then the chances are non null that he is here!" She tilts her head back as she says the names, hoping that the trio would come join her when called.

Nazir steps forward from behind Taelor beaming, "Did you say Rahim? Rahim Abdel?"
Almost as a reply to Nazirs inquiry a voice from inside the storage sounds loudly "Nazir? Is that really you? My god, what are you doing here?"
What follows is a text book family reunion. Nazir tells his father how he expected him back and he didn't come and then hired the crew to check what happened. And luckily he did, as supplies were coming to an end. It was only because they hid in the storage that they had enough supplies to last this long.
When questioned what happened on the station the mood turns dark. "They came from the mining shaft, men in, what looked like combat armor, came storming out and yelling at the station crew. Panic broke out, everybody ran around, furniture got pushed over, people screamed and the soldiers started shooting. In the commotion the we ran into the storage to hide. Samara was here and later the soldiers didn't find us. At the time I was surprised they searched so superficially, but when the pressure fell shut we knew why. "
During their time locked up in the storage they tried to remember anything unusual in the weeks before the attack, but nothing. Everything had been normal.

"We found some people over here!" Taelor calls out to her crewmembers.

As she watches Nazir and Rahim's reunion, she can't help but have a big, goofy grin plastered on her face. Nazir had spent most of the trip talking about his dad. The strength of their bond had been clear, as had the fear and anxiety eating at the young man. He'd been so wound up, Taelor had been afraid he could snap at any moment. To see the relief on his face, the tension leaving his shoulders, the tightness of their embrace... This is nice, Taelor thinks to herself, a much better surprise than a goo spider or a couple of corper assassins. She wipes a tear from her cheek. Her eyes meet Samara's for a moment and Taelor chuckles and shrugs. She was getting a bit emotional, but it was a touching moment.

Taelor sobers up when Rahim recounts the events that led to them being stuck in the storage room. "They came from the mining shaft? Is there another adit?" she says, using the technical term for a mine's entrance. "Those soldiers, did they have a white wolf's head with red teeth on their armor?"

When Taelor's eyes meet her own, Samara can barely see her for the tears welling in her eyes before joining their fellows in streaming down her face. This was the first time that she was a part of reuniting two living, breathing people who could tell one another their stories themselves. It was peaceful and joyous and for Samara, bordered on the sublime.  In fact, she is not initially aware of the shift in mood.  
"Whoever those soldiers were, whatever drove them to make the choices that they did - they are gone now.  Have you found anyone sense?  Or any indication that other people here were able to escape?"  She thinks of Maybelline and starts tearing up again, this time struck by the sadness of this vital, wonderful person losing her life.

Elan winces.

"People?" he whispers to Lola. "Or bodies?" He wishes Taelor might have specified whether they were alive or dead.

He pauses his search to join Taelor and is relieved to find walking, talking people rather than bullet-riddled bodies. He spends a moment witnessing the reunion of Nazir with his father. Instead of feeling joy, he feels some guilt over the delays in their journey that postponed the miners' rescue. "We got here as soon as we could," he lies.

"I'm Elan," he says, lowering his rifle and extending a hand. "What happened here?" He gets the brief recap and has the same questions that Taelor did, especially about soldiers coming up from the mine shaft.

"I certainly didn't see any evidence of shooting outside," he says. "But let's sweep the rest of the place. Others may need to be rescued. Then we can see who - or what - might be missing. Maybe others have pieces that we need to complete the puzzle.

"After that..." He trails off, wondering if they should just go or if they should investigate the mystery. Materials weren't being delivered to Mentta, which suggested an issue more widespread than this single asteroid. "Maybe down the mine shaft."

Still sniffling a little and clearly looking like she had just been crying, Samara shakes Elan's hand. She nods happily when he speaks of sweeping the station for survivors before looking at him quizzically. "What puzzle?"

"The 'what happened here' puzzle," Elan answers.

"Or, now that we have some eye-witnesses, the 'why did it happen' or the 'to what effect' puzzles.

"Supplies have been cut off from Gor to the Mentta system. Presumably that's related to what happened here in some way, but we don't know how or why. Yet."

"Oh! Right.  'What happened here' is a good puzzle... 'Why' and 'to what effect' less so, but I am happy to help anyhow!" She smiles broadly at Elan and then again at Taelor. These people have been nice so far!

"You know, I really thought this was going to be related to the goo spiders, but I guess maybe not?" Taelor shrugs. She looks out into the hallway, then back into the storage room at the miners."I'm sure you're all eager to stretch your legs. If you go poking around, though, make sure one of us is nearby. Just in case. If there are nasty surprises behind some of the pressure doors, you'll be happy to have an armed friend watching your back."

"Could one of you take me to the command center? We were able to get power and air back in the reactor room, but couldn't get much else done. Getting a look at the cameras might help us find the rest of your crew faster. For sure faster than opening every door one by one. And it might help us figure out this puzzle."

"Were the spiders made of goo or did they make goo? And were either the goo or the spiders edible?" Samara tries to imagine the taste and texture profile of 'goo spiders' and decides that there are too many variables.  She chews at her lip, frowning slightly, as the realisation dawns on her that the others were likely more interested in working out the current 'puzzle' than the gastronomical potential of arachnids of unusual viscosity.  "Uh... nevermind", she mumbles before perking up again. "I know where Command is! I'll take you!"

"Great! Lead the way, Sam," Taelor says, making room for the other woman to get through the doorway. She falls in step with her and follows her towards the command center.

"Soooooooo..." she says as they walk, trying to think of some small talk icebreaker, "what do you do here? Wait, no, let me guess." Taelor looks Samara up and down. "Hmmm... you don't strike me as a mucker, tunneler or loader... Nipper, maybe? You seem like the helpful sort... You thought to hide in the storeroom, so ferrying supplies makes sense. Yeah, I'm going with nipper, final answer!"

"Oh, I sling hash. Or used to. My last shift woulda been about 10 days after the doors locked. It was a good mess; well stocked and staffed!" Samara exclaims happily. It had been one of the better kitchens she had seen in a little while. "I'm guessing you're all private investigators? Seeing how you tracked down Rahim and all." She gasps. "Or are you real-life adventurers?" She was so happy to be out of the storeroom that Samara could barely fight the urge to skip through the corridors as she tried to guess at the crew's calling.

"Hah! Adventurers on the greatest adventure of all: interstellar shipping!" Taelor chuckles, but stops suddenly as she thinks about all that's happened since she first regained consciousness on the Tsunami. "I... guess we are..." she says. She turns to look at Samara and grins. "Officially, we're in the shipping and salvage business. Every job seems to come with complications, though. Can't say it's not been an adventure," she says wistfully.

"When I first told my parents I wanted to leave home and go exploring, they told me of an old curse: May you live in interesting times. I have no clue what the fucker who said this meant. It's been interesting and a blast! Just about everything I hoped for when I left the rock I grew up in."

Taelor shakes her head, turning her mind back to the present. "So, you're a cook and your tour is over. You any good? You looking for work and, perhaps, an adventure?" The crew of the Undertow managed to keep themselves fed well enough, but re-hydrated rations were... bleh. If Samara could take them from passable to enjoyable, Taelor was certain the rest of her shipmates would welcome the perky woman aboard with open arms.

Elan wonders how enthusiastic Taelor will be about "the adventure" when they uncover the bodies of the miners who weren't fortunate enough to take shelter in the storeroom. She also seems to be whitewashing the goo spiders, or crashing the ship into the dudes with flamethrowers, or the time that corpers tried to murder them on Sepcinc, or the spores that were really nanites on Astyoc, where the local goons who wanted to bomb the ship, or the little ankle-biting robots that shot at them...

Taelor's bright, can she really not remember this? Or is she just giving Samara the hard sell? Elan wonders, but he keeps the thought to himself as he helps clear the building, looking for survivors.

"Thank you so much!" It looks like Samara is on the verge of giving Taelor a hug, which she very much was, when she stops short. "I'll not say yes until you've had a chance to discuss it as a crew. I'd hate for anyone to feel like they couldn't say what they meant or felt because I was around.  That said, I'm a serviceable cook. Better than not having a cook, which you cannot say about all cooks!" She chuckles softly, remembering any number of unfortunate meals that she had eaten in the past.

"You know, interesting times are probably a blessing to you because you enjoy them. I am happy that that is the case, but maybe it was not for the person who came up with the expression... Oh look! Command is just through here."

The command center is located directly next to the main server room and offers a few terminals. Station life must have been simple to the extent of boring for the people monitoring the going ons. The command station is in sloppy disarray, as much as the low gravity allows, small tinker toys to bide the time are next to every terminal. It looks like the people here were either very lazy or there was simply very little to be monitored.

The terminals boot up normally, now that electricity and internal network are back.
The surveillance seems to be back up and running and shows a summary of the rest of the station.

Mess hall - the already known mess shows in the gloomy red emergency light.
Gym - the workout machines stand still and forlorn as if they are waiting for the crew.
Crew quarters - the camera shows only the empty hallway.
And so on...

Like this it continues, as the crew cycles through the cameras. No sign of anybody. Despite the visual results, a sweep of the station is decided, before making new plans.

Most of the station has been swept, the camera results confirmed. Just the crew quarters are left. As is already routine, the pressure door is opened by the terminal and it slides open with relative ease. As it does, the body of a man appears leaning against the wall, right before the door. It's Yuri, from the night shift, Sam realises. After the first shock, she rushes over to him, checking his vitals, but it is too late. Has been too late for a while as it seems. He is unharmed, but severely dehydrated.

Samara moves with determination towards Yuri Cinnamon oatmilk, spicy "beef" stew and kneels to assess him.  It is obvious that he is dead, and so she focuses on understanding what caused his death. "Dehydration. He does not appear to have been distressed at time of passing.  That will give his brother some degree of comfort." She inhales sharply, looking away from the body. "I need to remember to get the jar of pinecone jam that his brother had sent him.  He only ever ate it when there was fresh bread... Which wasn't often." Samara chuckles fondly, swiping at a rogue tear that she had not blinked back, and then smooths Yuri's hair with a sad smile.

"As there are worlds within which this has not happened; so too are there others within which you never were.  We acknowledge your passing, celebrate your passage, and dutifully seek peace in the face of the inevitable."
As she finishes the recitation, she remembers that she is neither alone nor among people who were likely to have heard it before, and blushes furiously.

Elan is impressed with Samara's reaction. She had been so happy and high-spirited that he figured that she would be one of those people who feels big feelings, high highs and low lows. He thought she would go to pieces at Yuri's demise but, no, she held it together and said some nice things. Elan is moved. Not, you know, visibly moved, but somewhere inside he stirs.

It reminds me of the priest on Aldega, he thinks to himself. Smiling his Zen smile, his faith in the Mother.

Elan isn't sure how a man who died of thirst wasn't distressed at his passing, but he appreciates the optimistic thought.

He clears a small catch in his throat. "Kindly spoken," he allows with a small croak as his voice breaks.

Not being a spacer, he is unsure the proper way to dispose of Yuri's remains. Transport them? Space them? Hopefully Taelor will know.

"Onto practical matters," he says when the moment has passed. "Were the others kidnapped? Evacuated?

"I think we should go down the mine shaft, if only to better understood where the men in combat armor might have come from."

He looks to Taelor and Lola for their thoughts on the matter.

Taelor brings her hand to her face to ward off the smell. She had a strong stomach. You needed it to be a good pilot, but dead bodies had a kind of smell that was hard to get used to. When their muscles relaxed, people void their bowels. And then there's the rot. The fact that Sam rushes in without a second thought, without a moment to try and come to grips with the stench first shows that she's made of much sterner stuff than Taelor had initially guessed.

She watches as Sam gives the poor man his last rites, or something akin to it. Taelor wasn't religious, but she knew of it. Some people in the militia had been. The cook's words sting a bit. Had it been inevitable? If they had not spent time on Haliant, or stopped on Staconago to buy weapons, could they have made it in time to save this man? She wants to ask Sam how long he's been dead, the selfish question hanging in her mind stinging even more. How could she think of assuaging her guilt in a moment like this? Shit, a few moments ago she'd been all smiles, bragging about the adventuring life. Fuck.

Tecumseh wrote:

"Were the others kidnapped? Evacuated?"

Right. Someone had done this. The fuckers who'd come up the shaft and left these people to die. Didn't even have the decency to give them a quick exit. The anger bubbling up inside her is soothing, in a way. It's better than the guilt. It even overtakes the stench. Taelor balls up her fists. Her face tightens. Whoever they were, they'd pay for this. For their crime, and for her carefree negligence.

Tecumseh wrote:

"I think we should go down the mine shaft, if only to better understood where the men in combat armor might have come from."

"We..." Taelor's voice is tight, raw. She clears her throat. "Let's finish clearing the quarters first. Make sure we're still missing people. Then, yeah," she says through clenched teeth. Her pistol is in her hand. She doesn't remember drawing it. "We find where the fuckers came from."

Tecumseh wrote:

He clears a small catch in his throat. "Kindly spoken," he allows with a small croak as his voice breaks.

Samara beams a bright smile at Elan.  There was something grounding about him that she liked; it was very different from what she liked about Taelor.

moarhair wrote:

Her pistol is in her hand. She doesn't remember drawing it. "We find where the fuckers came from."

Samara would normally advocate for non-violence, but seeing the source of Taelor's ire was unlikely to be on the station, it felt like there was little to gain and much to lose in doing so. "If you want, I can work my way through the quarters on my own that way you can get to the mine shaft faster cuz I don't really know how to fight so I couldn't help if you did find the people who did this and that way you wouldn't have to wait while I spent a bit of time..." saying goodbye Samara inhales shakily having simultaneously run out of breath and stoic resolve for the time being.   She rubs at her teary eyes with her forearm and smiles weakly at Elan and Taelor.  "And if anyone else is alive, then I can help them," she says softly between sniffles.

Elan nods stoically.

"Graham can watch over you. Just stand behind him if he tries to shoot anything."

It's unclear if he's being practical or witty.

"I'll take point, but I'll defer to Taelor's expertise when it comes to mines and mine shafts."

He looks at the pistol in Taelor's hand, and her rigidly flexing forearm.

Better get her something to shoot, he thinks to himself.

"Sounds like a plan. Let's suit back up," Taelor says. She turns around and marches back to mess hall. She drops her backpack and goes to grab her vacc suit. She frowns at the pistol in her hand. "When did..." Fuck, you're losing your cool, Gopher. Get a fucking grip. She puts her gun away.

The anger was still there, though, and her movements as she puts on her suit are jerky and rough. She couldn't get the image of... Yuri?... out of her head. He'd look like Adeline's dad, one of her friends back home, after he'd been rescued from a cave-in. Dehydration was hell. The body cuts off your extremities first to keep you alive. Adeline's family couldn't afford the cyberware prosthetics he'd have needed to be made whole. They'd left a few weeks later, moved planetside to get him the care he needed. To put someone through that by choice...

Taelor punches a table, the metallic clank echoing through the room and echoing down the corridors. She looks up to see the others staring at her. "Sorry..." she says weakly. She holds up her suit's glove. "I couldn't get it to latch," she lies.

"Okay Elan, I will. Promise." Samara says solemnly, having clearly taken him quite seriously. "Please take care of each other out there." She looks worriedly from Elan to Taelor and back to Elan and when the sharp metallic clank reverberates around them, Samara does a little leap like a startled kitten.

"Um... Before I keep going... How will we find each other again? How will I know if you do end up needing my help?"

The first part of the shaft ends quickly. About 10 m below the entrance to the shaft is a staging room, large enough to hold an array of vacc suits, some are missing, three parking spots for large ore containers and an entrance to an airlock.
Two ore containers are missing, the third stands empty in its waiting position.

The airlock was closed (luckily) and is ready to cycle. Taelor, Elan and Lola dress in the vacc suits again, checking each others seals and connecting the coms. Then they head into the lock and cycle it.

Behind the airlock a small room opens to three tunnels, left, right and down.
Left and right end soon and seemed to be abandoned, likely mined empty.
Going further down the trio finds similar rooms with two or three horizontal tunnels and one ever going down, deeper into the asteroid.
The tunnels always look the same. Rough hewn rock, relatively straight and thanks to the low gravity, neither supports nor rails seem necessary. Every tunnel just ends at some point.

Eventually the last level is reached. Again there are multiple tunnels, but no more down. The trio is already about to give up their search, when the second to last tunnel does not end up in a dead end. But in a room. It looks like the tunnel broke into the room somehow. The walls of the room are a clean light grey metal, some laboratory tables turned on the sides as make shift barricades shield the door from the hole.