It didn't take long for their cargo to arrive - apparently they really wanted those polymers - and it was soon stowed aboard. They lifted off at the earliest opportunity and laid in the course they had plotted.
Undertake an Expedition: "Explore the Dead Ship" 'dangerous'; +Wits +1 sidekick pilot; 5 +3 +1 vs 7 | 3 => strong hit => waypoint, progress now 2/10
As they had already jumped to the dead ship - to hedge their bets, they were rolling back on the assumption that it was a precursor ship now - they were able to get there in just one jump. They were too excited to sleep, so spent their downtime checking and rechecking Janya's gear and the drones that would accompany her piloted by Hayla.
The drones were of an old-fashioned quadcopter pattern - experience had shown that they were less susceptible to hi-tech jamming - and they would send two in with Janya. Of course, they would need an atmosphere to work, so they had a repulsor ball-shaped drone as back-up .
They spent the approach to the ship in the bridge, interrogating the sensors constantly trying to learn as much as they could about the ship. It was cruiser-sized and of a design as strange as its exterior finish - they'd never seen or, even heard of, a mirror finish like the one this ship had.
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| Images constructed from sensor data |
Finally, they were close enough for Hayla to maneouvre the Fegen close enough to match its rotation with their airlock close enough to the hole in the ship's side for Janya to EVA to it. She had already 'suited up' and was impatiently waiting for Hayla to finish the delicate task.
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| Janya in her suit |
Janya's suit was an advanced environmental/vacuum suit that had cost them a pretty penny, but they had both agreed that it was worth it and now, on the verge of exploring a dead ship in the depths of space, Janya was very glad that they had.
Finally, Hayla's voice came over the intercom. "In place, Sis - off you go." Janya could see the target hole/doorway only about five metres away and she launched herself towards it, making minor corrections to her trajectory with her attitudinal jets.
Explore a Waypoint: "Explore the Dead Ship"; +Wits; 4 +3 vs 7 | 7 => miss w. match burn momentum now +2 => strong hit w. opportunity => make a discovery; choose 'Lost or hidden people', mark 2 ticks on discoveries track, mark progress 4/10
Janya reached the hole and floated inside the ship. Her shoulder and head lights showed a cavernous space, that she couldn't see the far side of. She touched down and tried to engage her magnetic boots, but apparently there was no ferrous content in the deck as they had no effect. Her HUD readout confirmed there was no atmosphere inside the ship, as they suspected, so Janya released the repulsor ball drone she had brought. The feed from the drone would allow Hayla to have a VR experience of Janya's trip inside the dead ship.
There was nothing for Janya to get a grip on - unlike every ship that she'd ever been on, there was nothing protruding from the deck, walls or even the ceiling. Everything had the mirror finish like the outside, although here on the inside it was duller that the outside - not quite as reflective.
"Are you seeing this Sis?" Janya asked, wonder in her voice and anxious to share it with Hayla.
"I am," Hayla replied, "Can you believe it?" she asked, just as amazed by what they were seeing.
"If someone had told me about this, I wouldn't, but we're here, so I have to!" Janya responded.
"That looks like it might be an elevator in front of us," Hayla said, so Janya headed towards the circular wall in front of her.
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| Area of initial entry |
The wall curled away to both sides and on its left front - as Janya looked at it - there was a doorway shaped gap. Floating up to it Janya could see there was another doorway on the other side through which she could see the other side of the ship. Apparently this circle was in the middle of the ship. Reaching it, she let Halya's drone go in first and briefly tapped into its visual feed. Looking they could see that there was a circular shaft going up to another floor. The drone came back out of the shaft and quickly did a circuit round the outside of the shaft. It was on the centre line of the ship as they had suspected. The space narrowed as it stretched away fore and aft, although they were not certain which way was which. The drone found walls that crossed the width of the ship in each direction. The wall closest to what they thought was the front had 3 doorways in it, while the wall in the other direction - toward what they believed were the engines - had only one doorway.
Undertake an Expedition: "Explore the Dead Ship" 'dangerous'; +Wits; 6 +3 vs 6 | 4 => strong hit => waypoint, progress now 6/10
"D'you think all the doors on the ship are open, or can we only see open doors?" Janya asked.
"How can we tell?" answered Hayla. "But given the complete lack of any stuff at all, I wouldn't be surprised if it had suffered a sudden decompression - all the open doors might've been the cause..."
With that suggestion floating in the air, Janya and the drone drifted into the shaft and began to go up, towards the next deck of the ship.