Alaxis smiled slightly as she received help with her suit, then smirked slightly at his reply to watch her six. Following silently behind them she awaited until they boarded then tilted her head as trouble found them with the air lock chamber.. 

As soon as the doors opened however a shiver raced through her body. Watching as others entered first then gingerly followed them looking around, trying to see if her knowledge would actually be helpful at the moment, or if she was to wait until something.. or someone was found.. 

The doors move slightly and then stops. “Error 1742” lights up on the small display for the door mechanism.

“Well damn it.” Jonah said “Anyone know what an error 1742 is?”

A moment later Alex's voice came over the comm, “Decompression Breach. Means the doors were opened from the bridge while the ship was pressurized. And then shut again.”

"Decompression Breach..I knew that,.... well I know I used to know that", the older man grunted in response and moved to the manual override. It was an old turn wheel mechanism, Jonah began to turn the wheel. The doors moved a bit more, then the wheel became too hard to move. "Gorrum, this thing needs greased." As he struggled Fenris came over to help and between the two of them, the door were finally opened.

Moving in a wave of coldness could be felt from the dead ship and the life support heaters in the suits kicked in. Beyond the doors was a small airlock and cargo bay of the Demeter. Pops walked gingerly the steel grate floor, no need to stumble and look like a feeble old man. Small flecks of something floating around. They are a grey silver colour and very thin, like paint flecks or film. Jonah checked his pockets until he found a small sample bag. Using it like a net he collected some the debris to check later."No telling what this might have been but maybe we can identify it later." Seeing the torn straps, "What them was holding didn't leave in a friendly manner....well let's get deeper in. The sooner we get in there the sooner we get back."

Moving to the door opposite the hatch Pops found it closed and the emergency inner doors were closed as well. Pops pulled out his scanner and repeated the process he used on the outer hatch. Looking from the Doc to Wolf, "Ok bullet get yourself over here, likely we'll be need'n them big strong arms of yours over here to get these doors open."

Punching in the codes Pops waited for the doors to respond.

Reaching out a gloved hand, Wyatt attempts to catch some of the silvery flecks to investigate further. He caught a piece in his hand and looked at it through his helmet. The fleck started to flake is his gloved hand and some started to melt from the heat of his gloves. Paint – it was paint, frozen flecks of silver paint floating in the vacuum of the black.

Fox and Alex search around the hold while waiting for the doors to open. There was not much to be found. This was originally a science vessel so it did not have a big hold. It could not have held a lot of cargo and was most likely stuff that was not needed on a day to day basis. There were no signs of a battle or fire fight in the room. From the number of straps remaining, you would guess that only a couple of pallets were here once before.

Jonah and Fenris began to work on the doorway. Moving to the door opposite the hatch Pops found it closed and the emergency inner doors were closed as well. Pops pulled out his scanner and repeated the process he used on the outer hatch. Looking from the Doc to Wolf, "Ok bullet get yourself over here, likely we'll be need'n them big strong arms of yours over here to get these doors open."

Once power was attached to the control, punching in the codes Pops waited for the doors to respond. It did easily. The heavy decompression door slid silently back into a safe position and the main doors opened. More flecks of paint danced in the light of headlamps.

There corridor before you empty except the flecks and frost. There are three doors to other rooms here and a circular lift that is closed – no decompression doors sealed here. The door on your immediate left looks dented, as if something big and heavy hit it from the other side.

Alex pulls up the schematics of the ship. You were on Deck 2. Bridge was straight head through the door and down a corridor ahead.  Crew quarters and infirmary were on deck 1, access through the lift and in the case of power failure, there was a ladder alone the side of the shaft as the lift would descend automatically. Engineering was in the aft section, accessible via deck 1, Backup generators on deck 1. Deck 3 has the equipment reasonable for the massive sensor array that the science vessel had. No telling what was there now but the ladder to access it was up ahead and to the left.

Paint? Lifting his muddy brown eyes from the discovery, Captain Sung surveys the bay. What's the significance of this? This amount of flaked paint floating around has to mean something but for the life of him, the half-Korean Browncoat can't think of the reason. Scraped off of some crate when the airlock was blown? Moving to the nearest wall, he investigates the coating beneath its layer of frost, scraping away the frozen crystals with the heel of his gloved hand. Turning away from the puzzle, Wyatt considers the rest of the apparent evidence, making his conclusions while his crew works.

"Ok, Bullet," Pops remarks, his voice carrying across the EV suit's radio, "get yourself over here. Likely we'll be need'n them big strong arms of yours over here to get these doors open."

Wyatt joins them as the older man attaches power to the control box, punches in the codes, and waits for the doors to respond. Surprisingly, it did, easily. The heavy decompression door slides silently back into a safe position and the main doors open. More flecks of paint dance in the light of headlamps drawing a return of the slightly furrowed brow and speculative frown on the captain's face.

A corridor is before them; empty except the flecks and frost. There are three doors to other rooms ahead in the hall and a circular lift with closed doors as well—no sealed decompression doors. The door on their immediate left is dented as if something big and heavy hit it from the other side, bulging towards them.

Alex pulls up the schematics of the ship. They are on Deck 2. The Bridge is straight ahead through the door furthest from them and down a long corridor. Reviewing the schematics, Wyatt registers that the crew quarters and infirmary are on Deck 1, which can be accessed through the lift and, in the case of power failure, a ladder attached to the side of the shaft. The lift should descend automatically. Engineering is in the aft section, accessible via Deck 1, with backup generators also on Deck 1. Deck 3 has the equipment necessary for the massive sensor array that the science vessel had at one time, the ladder to access it is up ahead and to the left.

"That can't be good," Wyatt points to the bulging door. "Coulda been explosives, maybe?" 

Walking confidently further into the corridor, Wyatt turns back to his team, "All right, people. You know the drill. Get the back-up power on if ya can. We'll track down the life sign. Be careful. I know we're on the clock, so to speak, but nothin's worth yer lives."

That being said, Captain Sung leads his small team towards the section of the ship they had detected the faint signal.

As Pops was punching the codes Wyatt join him and Wolf by the doors. hitting enter the doors responded and the slide open, first the decompression door and then the passageway door. The passage beyond was dark and as their suit lamps cast beams into the corridor more of the silver flecks sparkled as they floated in the space. Pops unplugged his gear and lead the group in.

The group made a quick survey of what could be seem, Alex had pulled out the ship's layout and Wyatt was comparing what he saw to the layout. Pops stepped up too and quickly saw they were on deck two. There was deck above that contained the backup generator and the access to Engineering. There was a lift just ahead of them but without power they'd have to use the emergency ladder.

Wyatt turned and saw that the first set of doors to the left were damaged, as if from the inside. "That can't be good," Wyatt points to the bulging door. "Coulda been explosives, maybe?"

Walking confidently further into the corridor, Wyatt turns back to his team, "All right, people. You know the drill. Get the back-up power on if ya can. We'll track down the life sign. Be careful. I know we're on the clock, so to speak, but nothin's worth yer lives."

Pops waved his hand to get Wyatt's attention, "Well unless you all have powered scanners it's going to be a bit difficult to to get through them doors without power. So whatd'ya want to do first? I could open these doors for y'all to search the rooms or you can stand in the dark whilst Wolf and I go up a deck and see if we can get that backup running."

Pops nodded toward the bulging door, "Might be safer to check that while you're still suited up in case there's sumpthin funny in there... Once we're up a deck Wolf and I'll let you know when we're about to throw the switch so you can be ready for it. Hate to have ya caught unawears if a bunch of bells and alarms start blaring. ...Doc, looks like the medical room is up there too, so you might want to check it out whilst Bul.. ah..Wolf puts his smarts to work cranking over that backup. By the way Wolf, you by chance bring a reader with you that you get a copy of them deck layouts from Alex?"

Looking back to Wyatt, "Well ya want these doors opened first?"

Alex moved intot he open passage with the others.  He would go with a couple or others to look for the faint sign of life.  That should be intriguing enough.  What could live out here?  

As he moved towards the room in question he was basically just following the leader.  He used his time to look around for anything of interest. 

He tried to grab some of the paint flakes.  He was confused by them.  What kind of paint was it?  Industrial?  And what would make paint melt?  He looked closely at it and tried to get some of it into a small container.  They would want to examine some of it, and as soon as they got the lifesupport going . . . .actually, he wasn't quite sure what it would do.  He spoke up before the other group headed towards mechanical.  "What happens to all these paint flakes if you get life support back on?  Will they get sucked into the air system and ruin it? Just drop to the floor and cover everything with a thin coat of paint?  Would that damage anything we need?  Or our suits?  Is there anything we need to cover before heating this place up?"  He continued to look around for sources for the paint.  

He also looked at the door that was punched out.  Was there any chance of detecting a shape in the damage?

Peering at the schematics again, Wyatt points to the backup generators on Deck 1. "That's on our way t' the life sign, so we'll all head there t'gether." Looking towards Wolf, the captain reiterates Alex's questions, "Any concern 'bout this paint?"

(OOC: Wolf's answer...)

"I don' want t' spend a bunch o' time opening doors when our primary concern was the life sign," Sung returns to the mission. "We can address the rest o' the ship once we know what's what with what caught our attention t' begin with. 'Sides, I would like t' see the ship's logs 'fore we go opening potential hazards. So, no more opening doors but fer the rooms we absolutely need t' get into.

"Let's get them generators up, then get int' that room," Wyatt points to the room near the head on Deck 1, "then engineering an' the bridge. Unless somethin' comes up t' change the plan."

And that's the price of opening your mouth. Apparently people (and Pops specifically) didn't care for his previous objections. Fair enough. He could not care about their not caring right back. So there.

Still, he followed Pops and Wolf. Fox wouldn't know what use he'd be until they saw the problem. But one thing he refused to be was useless.

Another thing he refused to be was ignored, but that could wait until after they were off this damn ghost-ship.

Moving to the door opposite the hatch Pops found it closed and the emergency inner doors were closed as well. Pops pulled out his scanner and repeated the process he used on the outer hatch. Looking from the Doc to Wolf,

"Ok bullet get yourself over here, likely we'll be need'n them big strong arms of yours over here to get these doors open."

“Ok Popsicle hold your on to your diminished gentiles” I replied to him as I moved to help him, joined by Wyatt we watched as the old man punched in the codes to the door. Without any suspense the heavy decompression door slid silently back into a safe position and the main doors opened. More flecks of paint danced in the light of headlamps.

Before the group a corridor filled with space frost and more floating flecks, three doors to other rooms and a circular lift that was clearly closed. Wolf could see that door to his immediate left looked dented, as if something big and heavy had hit it from the other side.

"That can't be good," Wyatt points to the bulging door. "Coulda been explosives, maybe?" 

“Or explosive decompression, we saw evidence of that possibility in the cargo hold,” Wolf spoke up.
as he scanned the area the crew now found themselves in.

Walking confidently further into the corridor, Wyatt turns back to his team, "All right, people. You know the drill. Get the back-up power on if ya can. We'll track down the life sign. Be careful. I know we're on the clock, so to speak, but nothin's worth yer lives."

"Well unless you all have powered scanners it's going to be a bit difficult to to get through them doors without power. So whatd'ya want to do first? I could open these doors for y'all to search the rooms or you can stand in the dark whilst Wolf and I go up a deck and see if we can get that backup running. Might be safer to check that while you're still suited up in case there's sumpthin funny in there... Once we're up a deck Wolf and I'll let you know when we're about to throw the switch so you can be ready for it. Hate to have ya caught unawares if a bunch of bells and alarms start blaring. ...Doc, looks like the medical room is up there too, so you might want to check it out whilst Bul.. ah..Wolf puts his smarts to work cranking over that backup. By the way Wolf, you by chance bring a reader with you that you get a copy of them deck layouts from Alex?"

Fenris could not help but smile to himself as Pop went back to calling him Wolf instead of Alaxis’s nickname of Bullet. Coming from her was ok but from Pops for some reason not so much.

"What happens to all these paint flakes if you get life support back on?  Will they get sucked into the air system and ruin it? Just drop to the floor and cover everything with a thin coat of paint?  Would that damage anything we need?  Or our suits?  Is there anything we need to cover before heating this place up?"  This from Alex.

Peering at the schematics again, Wyatt points to the backup generators on Deck 1. "That's on our way t' the life sign, so we'll all head there t'gether." Looking towards Wolf, the captain reiterates Alex's questions, "Any concern 'bout this paint?"

“Honestly not sure Cap’n, could be paint, could be explosive residue, could be left over paper scrapes. I’d advise even after we re-compress her we keep our suits on.”

"I don' want t' spend a bunch o' time opening doors when our primary concern was the life sign," Sung returns to the mission. "We can address the rest o' the ship once we know what's what with what caught our attention t' begin with. 'Sides, I would like t' see the ship's logs 'fore we go opening potential hazards. So, no more opening doors but fer the rooms we absolutely need t' get into. Let's get them generators up, then get int' that room," Wyatt points to the room near the head on Deck 1, "then engineering an' the bridge. Unless somethin' comes up t' change the plan."

“Pops, Fox, your with me lets get to engineering”  Looking to Wyatt as he moved out he gave the Captain an old Browncoat sign of good luck. A wink to Alexis and the three of them were on their way…...

Peering at the schematics again, Wyatt points to the backup generators on Deck 1. "That's on our way t' the life sign, so we'll all head there t'gether." Looking towards Wolf, the captain reiterates Alex's questions, "Any concern 'bout this paint?"

“Honestly not sure Cap’n, could be paint, could be explosive residue, could be left over paper scrapes. I’d advise even after we re-compress her we keep our suits on.”, the big mechanic replied.

"I don' want t' spend a bunch o' time opening doors when our primary concern was the life sign," Sung returns to the mission. "We can address the rest o' the ship once we know what's what with what caught our attention t' begin with. 'Sides, I would like t' see the ship's logs 'fore we go opening potential hazards. So, no more opening doors but fer the rooms we absolutely need t' get into. Let's get them generators up, then get int' that room," Wyatt points to the room near the head on Deck 1, "then engineering an' the bridge. Unless somethin' comes up t' change the plan."

“Pops, Fox, your with me lets get to engineering”, Wolf said as he gave Wyatt a high sign.

Jonah smiled to himself, "Well big guy first thing first..get your bottom up that ladder and we'll follow. That generator needs booted so Doc and I will be right behind you, the others can follow." With a little wave of the hand, "Doc you're next." Jonah follow the Doc up the ladder and was careful not to stare..after all he was old, not dead.

They got to the next level and Jonah made his way to the aft doors and once more attached the scanner and power unit. The activation sequence loaded and they waited for the door to slide open. He then repeated the sequence to open the doors to the backup generator room. Pops left the doors to forward section alone, he figured if the backup power came on they could open them when they were ready to head that way. 

Alaxis made her way with the rest of the team, looking around at the flecks in the air. A frown on her lips formed until it was realized that it was indeed paint floating around. She idly followed and waited until a voice broke through her thoughts, 

"doc, youre next" She shook her head to clear itand began the climb, frowning as she did so. Once she cleared the ladder she stepped aside and waited, looking at the one she dubbed as Bullet. Leaning against the wall she watched him smirking slightly as thoughts roamed her mind.

Destiny Day 3, 9:30 pm Ship Time (ST) – Time spent on Demeter: 1 hr 30 minutes

Opening the door to the lift takes some time as the door mechanism is frozen. Seems whoever put in the lift when the ship was built saved some money on cheap parts. After much swearing and the use of strength and a cutting tool to warm the bearings, the door moved free and you were able to get inside the shaft.

The lift was in the lower compartment, making the roof of the elevator the floor to walk on in order to get to the ladders. There were two sets of iron rungs going up to the next level, one on either side. There were no paint flecks in here, until you opened the door that is. The lights from your helmets and flashlights show nothing within the shaft at all.

EVA suits are made to be flexible and the boots are magnetic so you can walk upright, but going up a iron ladder in the dark, with frost layered on the rungs was best if you did not employ the magnetics and used the lack of gravity to move yourself upwards, and the rungs to slow you down.

Once on the second floor you find the door to the corridor just as hard to open, but both Apollo and Pops expected that to be the case and get it open with minimal effort. Once in the corridor of the second level, the group of you split into two. Pops, Fox and Apollo head to the backup generator room, while Wyatt, Alex and Alaxis go to the infirmary.  There is nothing in the corriodrs of note.

The Backup Generators

The doors on this level are standard hatches and do not require power to open. The team moves into the first area and sees a long corridor going down to the aft section of the ship and engineering. You head to the room marked “Back Up Generators. High Voltage, Proceed with Caution””

Upon entering the room, you find a complete mess. There are wires and control panel parts floating around the room. The back up batteries are covered with wires held down by a lot of duct tape. The back up generator has been broken into and salvaged for wires and cables. At least three cardboard rolls that would once held duct tape are floating around in here too. Someone ripped this room to shreds and then did a really bad patch job.  You are merely guessing as you look around but you doubt whoever did this knew very much about engineering.

(You will have to investigate to determine what is what in here)

The Infirmary

The team enters the medical bay. Beyond containing basic medical supplies and equipment, it has a portable x-ray machine, a single diagnostic bed, a storage locker, table and Med-comp computer that hooks to the case on the table. A dead man is in here, floating around, quite frozen. There is a patch on his uniform with “John Seward”.

On the single diagnosis bed are two body bags. Each bag is sealed, then ducted sealed as well and then ducted to the bed. There are tags on both bags and they have something (a body perhaps) inside them.

On the table is sealed suitcase, with wires and an oxygen tubes going into the case. The case is warmer than the frozen interior of the ship and the oxygen lead runs to a series of five oxy tanks, all duct taped to the walls and the lead going from tank to tank.  Tapped to the suitcase is a handwritten note, in English and mandarin reading “SAVE HER PLEASE” There are wires that have ripped out of the walls and reattached with duct tape to the MedComp.

Whatever was done here, it was done in haste. The suitcase is sealed with about two full rolls of duct tape. The empty rolls float about in here too. I The MedComp is set to monitoring the case and is running on battery power. The medical backup battery is at 5% power, hence the distress signal.

Alaxis looks at the MedComp screen. The system is set to stasis-sleep and is monitoring the faint life signs of something that is in the case. Normally you can not put anyone into stasis sleep for longer than a week but whoever did this – presumably John, put the MC into a diagnostic loop so it would not reset itself.

Wyatt stands watch while Wolf and Pops work their magic on the elevator shaft door, considering the condition of the ship, the dent in the door, the paint flecks, the broken straps... I have a bad feeling about this, he thinks. 

You have a bad feeling about everything, my love, Eden's soft voice echoes back at him from the void of memory.

Blinking away her ghost, Captain Sung realizes that his crew is nearly finished. Positioning himself in front of the door, he readies himself as Wolf works the door open. Stepping inside, Wyatt shines his light about and assesses the situation. 

"Clear," he relays, already working the panel on his left forearm to disengage the magnetics. A dull thump follows and the captain of Destiny immediately begins to float. Using the rungs of the ladder to propel himself up to the next floor, he pulls himself to the side upon finding the door to the second floor in a similar state to the one they'd just come through. Wolf and Pops make short work of this one, having practiced on the first, and once the door is opened, Wyatt pulls himself through, pushing his feet to the floor once more, and activates his magnetics. 

"Stay in touch," he requests after everyone is through. "We've already been here a while. Don't want anyone to run short of oxygen."

Leading Alex and Alaxis to the infirmary, the team finds entry a lot easier than the lift had been. Stepping through the door, Sung is immediately met by the feeling of a morgue. The dead man floating, the body bags, they have an otherworldly feel to them. Making his way directly to the floating body, Wyatt bends to read the patch out loud, "John Seward... anyone recall the name?" Is this a member of the original crew?

(OOC: answers, if any...)

By-passing the bodybags, Captain Sung visually examines the rigging that had been done with the tape. Following the leads to the case, he steps up to the attached note and again reads out loud, "Got a suitcase here. Looks to be sealed off completely by tape. Has a note that reads, 'Save her, please.'"

Glancing at Alaxis, he asks, "What's yer take, Doc?"

Alex watched as the others worked on the doors and the group moved into the lift. He’d always kind of liked low G – so losing the magnetics and pulling himself “up” the lift was something he would normally have played around with. But for now he was focused on looking around. As they moved into the upper level he looked around for paint – was it here also? (??)

               The first real discovery was the dead body in the Infirmary. “John Seward?” Did he know that name? Even as Alex considered the question the captain asked the same thing. Unfortunately, the answer was, “no,” and that was what he relayed. “That’s a “no” on the name. When I found the schematic for the ship, I also tried to look up a crew list. No go. But given what this thing was supposed to have been doing that is hardly a surprise. When we get back to Destiny I can dig more on the specific name, but I wouldn’t bet on much. And considering where he ended up, I’d be careful about who I asked.” Alex looked at the poor guy frozen in front of him. “But the basic answer, is “no.””

               He couldn’t help looking at the suitcase even as it was Doc whose task this was. Was something alive in there? How long could something survive? And what exactly would fit inside a suitcase? A pet? Maybe a child? Certainly nobody would put a child . . .but under the circumstances maybe a desperate parent would. But what in the blackest of the Black had happened here?

Burned out communication systems.

A ransacked cargo bay.

Floating paint

People dead. But they had time to try and save things.

Had those who had attacked the ship come inside? Almost certainly, since the cargo bay had been looted. Assuming, of course, it had ever held something in the first place. But it seemed likely that something had been there, even if it wasn’t filled with valuable metal. But then they had left people alive in the rest of the ship? Just left them there to die? How long had they had until they ran out of power?

               He couldn’t help wonder what the other group was finding out about the power supply. Did they have an answer about the timing of this mess? Why hadn’t the attackers killed those inside? Looking at the body bags he amended that to ‘everyone inside.’ But had they seen signs of conflict? Had there been any indication that the cargo bay doors had been blocked in some way?

               “Boss. Why would whoever took this ship – and emptied the Bays – have left Seward here to do this? Have we seen any sign of force or the crew being locked in?” He couldn’t figure it out himself yet. He moved to the storage locker and opened it, glancing inside. “What about these body bags, captain?” He moved over and read the tags on them. “An interesting use of time to bag ‘em up and tape ‘em down.” He felt around the outside of the bags a bit to see if he could get a sense of what was on the inside – bodies or otherwise. His own suit and the bags themselves would make that easy, right? “Open ‘em now in the void or not? When we get power it will be interesting to see if anything is on that computer, but given the speed tape job I doubt they took the time to log everything.”

               He couldn’t help but watch the doc and the suitcase. Was something alive in that?

Jonah leads Wolf to the set of doors marked, “Back Up Generators. High Voltage, Proceed with Caution”. The door opened easily and the pair stepped in but what they found was quite unexpected.

The room had been ruthlessly scavenged. The back up generator has been broken into and salvaged for wires and cables. There are wires and control panel parts floating around the room. The back up batteries are covered with wires held down by a lot of duct tape. Jonah stared as he tried to fathom what had gone on in there. Someone ripped this room to shreds and then did a really bad patch job. It was clear that whoever did this didn't know very much about engineering.

Jonah keyed his com, "Wyatt...this ain't going to be easy, someone has torn most of the power unit apart for parts...It'll take a bit to see there is enough left to get something on line. Wolf and I will start but may take a bit."

Turning to Wolf,"How about you start from the out feed and work back into the generator. I'll see if I can find the parts you need....If we can't get this going we may have see if we can do better in Engineering."

They started to examine the equipment to see if getting unit working was even doable.