IC- 20 - Waystation - Kiara

[Mephistophilis]

Li shrugs. 'Doesn't seem to have done them any good being marines,' she says, glancing at the corpse. 'When I've got the shuttle powered up I should be able to access the log.'

Using her datapad, Kiara attempts to scan the body. In the absence of any specific medical attachments she's not sure how much she can learn, but she tries to see if there is any evidence of the infectious alien organism, and how long this guy has been dead. She accesses all the electromagnetic channels available on the datapad to try and get as much information as she can on his physiology, his frozen state is not making that easy.

Sounds like a Medicine roll to see how long he's been dead (1%). Maybe a hard Biology roll (10%). In order to detect any sign of the alien organism that'll be a hard Physics (30%) or Chemistry (25%) roll. Just roll 1d100, tell me if you're using Medicine or Biology and if you're using Physics or Chemistry, and then I'll take that as a combined roll and compare it to the thresholds to see the degree of success.

[jp1885]

I’ll go with biology and physics.

[24] = 24
d%: [ 24 ] = 24

[Mephistophilis]

Despite scanning the body across multiple frequencies, and trying a few algorithms to model tissue decay, Kiara can't get any kind of handle on how long he has been here. Some of her difficulty might be connected with the unusual readings she's getting back. While she can't say for sure the body has been infected by the alien pathogen there are definitely some inconsistencies in the reflection of electromagnetic radiation that suggest more silica and other dense material in the body than she'd expect.

While Kiara is busy examining the body, Li manages to get the lights on in the cockpit. 'I'm getting the power back online. I'll seal the cabin and start to heat things up and purge the atmosphere.' Several panels and screens on flight deck light up and she starts to press various buttons, dials, and monitors in a systematic way. Li pauses for a second and makes some odd noises, like she's frustrated. 'That's strange. I can't access the shuttle log, it says it's classified and encrypted. I've never seen that before.'

So fail Biology but pass Physics.

[jp1885]

“Let’s get this guy out before the cockpit warms up too much. There’s no guarantee he’s not infected and I’d hate for him to come alive...”

Kiara shudders.

“…stuck in here with us…”

[Mephistophilis]

Li helps Kiara to drag the body out of the cockpit and then they pitch it off the top of the steps to fall all the way down onto the runway, bouncing gently off the bitumen and settling near the foot of the staircase. Li seals the door behind them and they return to the cockpit. 'Now what? Do you want to wait here for me to get the shuttle warmed up? I'll see if I can prep it for launch but it will take a few hours.'

Aww, it would have been fun! What do you want to do now?

[jp1885]

“There must be something in the systems,” Kiara replies, poking around for digital clues. “Fuel usage, manifests, comms logs…”

“Speaking of which, how powerful would the shuttle’s radio be? Could we use it to contact the others?”

[Mephistophilis]

After accessing the console Li says, 'The radio's working. The range is usually plenty to reach as far as Barnard's Rest or beyond. But I wouldn't normally be using it from the ground. I'm not sure how much difference that would make.'

Kiara tries to access the ship's systems, to see if she can find an alternative way in to look at the log or if she can access a less protected system that might give her some idea of how long the ship has been here or even what it is doing.

That's Computer Use. Degree of success will indicate how much info you get.

[jp1885]

[3] = 3
Computer use 65 d%: [ 3 ] = 3

Kiara expertly pokes around the shuttle’s systems.

[Mephistophilis]

While the shuttle's logs are protected, it doesn't take Kiara too long to access some of the peripheral systems. The fuel was last topped up about a week ago and now it's empty. No fuel has been used for the last couple of days. Which reminds her, they're going to need to refuel before taking off of Titan if they plan to actually go anywhere after that.

While she can't see the content of any messages she can see from the comms log that they never made contact with the Barnard's Rest Colony, or Waystation directly. And they have only been sending messages back out into space, maybe to Ganymede, it's difficult to pin down exactly. She can't get to the ship's manifest but she can see the access logs. While it mostly seems to have been Richter Dynamics employees until a week ago the most recent logs indicate a number of 'classified' designations, whatever that means. She thinks there were probably seven people onboard when it touched down on Titan. Obviously they've all left except for one, and she chucked him off the steps a few minutes ago.

[jp1885]

K relaying the information back to Li gives Kiara time to process what she’s discovered.

“I guess that means they were en-route before all this kicked off… they didn’t tell Bernard’s Rest either… Somebody higher up the food chain must’ve known what was going on here.”

“We’ve gotta tell the others. Can you make arrangements to fuel the shuttle while I try to pick up the rover’s radio?”

[Mephistophilis]

'I don't know if they have automated fuelling on a makeshift runway like this one' says Li. 'I'll see if I can hail any service drones.' She spends a few minutes on the main console before saying, 'We're in luck, the Waystation peripheral network is telling me that there's a fuel pump and a service drone nearby. It seems to be designed to fill the copters and rovers but I can take control of it manually and use it to refuel the shuttle from here.'

Li busies herself trying to access the service drone remote override and Kiara tries to raise the rover on the shuttle's communication systems. She tries a few frequencies without much success, eventually realising that atmospheric scatter means that most of the usual shuttle channels are no use from Titan's surface.

Let's have a Science (Physics) roll to see if Kiara can figure out what frequencies to use.

Half Luck (60%/2 = 30%): 1d100 14

[jp1885]

[93] = 93
Science physics 60 d%: [ 93 ] = 93

Kiara tries a few random frequencies, but fails to sync up with the rover.

“Ugh, it’s no good, I can’t raise anybody,” she grumbles.

Frustrated, she fiddles with the shuttles sensor controls while waiting for Li to do her thing. Assuming the sensor array is more powerful than her datapad, can she pick up anything unusual?

[Mephistophilis]

The shuttle sensors aren't quite oriented in the directions Kiara would like them to measure, but she confirms most of what she could detect from the copter.

So it wasn't the copter sensors, there's something not right here in Waystation. Either something is disrupting the shuttle sensors as well, or there's something about Waystation causing the sonographic, seismic, and broad-spectrum electromagnetic readings to fluctuating wildly, with measurements of gravity, density, magnetism, and vibration uninterpretable.

What she can discern is that there seems to be something under the surface, something with seemingly impossible mass, but at other times it doesn't seem to be there at all, like there's just a void, a hollow cavern.

And there's something else, a sort of pattern, it repeats, but across different sensors, sometimes it's a vibration, other times a fluctuation in the measured effects of gravity, and often a burst of electromagnetic radiation in a narrow band. A repeating high frequency pattern, cyclical, speeding up to reach a crescendo and then starting back over again in another sensor. It's too regular to be natural, but what it is she has no idea.

Sorry, I think that's a SAN check - 1/1d4+1

[jp1885]

[4] = 4
SAN 61 d%: [ 4 ] = 4

Considering the amount of weird stuff she's experienced recently, these bizarre readings are of no surprise to Kiara.

Sighing and muttering to herself about why the hell she ever took this job, she rubs her eyes and sits back to wait for Li to get the shuttle refuelled.

Then she has an idea. If she and Li decide to make a run for it in the shuttle, chances are they'll be blown out of the sky. Jabbing furiously on her datapad, she attempts to formulate a way of altering the shuttle's transponder settings to either cloak the ship, or make it look like some kind of innocuous space junk.

[Mephistophilis]

It's a trivial matter to disable the shuttle transponder. The question is whether whoever destroyed the other shuttle is going by transponder signal or just blasting anything they see take off from Titan.

'What are you doing there?' asks Li as she busies herself with the shuttle controls. She has a look of intense concentration on her face, 'This is harder than it looks. If I'm not going to blow the fuel pump I'm going to need to take this slowly. It'll be at least an hour. Then maybe another hour before we're ready to dust off from Titan.'

Kiara knows it will probably be a few more hours after that before the others arrive in the rover.

[jp1885]

“Okay. Is there anything I can do to speed things up?” Kiara asks.

“We should be checking things out outside, but the shuttle could be our escape route, so I want it ready before we start attracting attention to ourselves.”

[Mephistophilis]

'Yes. You can keep quiet while I do this' grumbles Li, keeping her gaze fixed on the display panel in front of her.

True to her word it takes a good hour for her to fill up the shuttle's fuel tank, the little service drone running back and forth between the pumps and the shuttle delivering small volumes of liquid hydrogen to the plasma-based propulsion system. All the while Li is glued to the shuttle control panel, manipulating a virtual joystick with each hand, a look of intense concentration mixed with frustration etched across her face.

OOC:   Anything you'd like to do while Li fills the shuttle with fuel?

[jp1885]

While Li beavers away, Kiara keeps up a continuous scan of the area, effectively keeping watch for any threats.

OOC:   Sorry, not very interesting, but she’s not going to go poking around the spooky station on her own!

[Mephistophilis]

While cycling through the communication bands Kiara picks something up. 'Kiara, come in Kiara, this is Sam, are you reading me? Over.'

[jp1885]

“Yeah, it’s me! Um, I mean, affirmative,” Kiara replies. “You all ok? What’s your ETA?”