By the waning years of the 22nd century, humanity has expanded beyond Earth, establishing colonies on Mars, Ceres, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn; the latter of these being largely penal or mining colonies, taking advantage of the isolation and mineral wealth of these moons. One such colony, known as Benedict’s Rest, was established on the shores of the north polar sea of Ligeia Mare on the moon Titan, in the year 2169. Originally a penal colony that used convict labor to harvest liquid methane, Benedict’s Rest was bought out by a German energy conglomerate, Richter Dynamics, and expanded; now, in 2189, contract, or “free” miners outnumber convicts 5 to 1—158 free miners to 31 convicts.
The colony’s productivity, formerly the highest of any Richter colony site, has dropped 19% in the last month with no reasonable explanation provided. In the same period, the colony medic, Dr. Henry Holzer, has died; the administration has been vague regarding cause, though it has been intimated that he committed suicide. Over the objections of colony administrator James Kingsley, Richter Dynamics has sent a team of corporate troubleshooters to investigate these two issues and make recommendations to revive productivity.
Walking across the tarmac of the runway, Sam approaches the dark bulk of the shuttle. There is the faintest of glows from cockpit window but everywhere else is black, silhouetted against the dull orange sun. The puts her foot onto the first rung of the metal steps that lead up to the main cabin door. Her magnetised boots clank as she slowly walks up the steps, slowed down a little by the magnetic grip. Her suit lights illuminate the steps which are covered in a fine dust of methane snow, the footprints from their last visit almost completely obscured now. The shuttle fuselage remains covered in thick encrustations of frozen methane while the main cabin door has a thin layer of frost. The door controls continue to flash with a dim red light, indicating that it is still locked but Sam finds a copy of the entry code in Kiara's datapad and the door smoothly slides open, breaking the seal of frost which sloughs off onto the steps.
Through the main door, Sam can see the closed cockpit door on the right-hand side, to the left she can make out the first few rows of seats. Several seem to have been removed and replaced with equipment storage crates and racks. There are no lights on inside the cabin and everything is covered in a thin layer of frost but Sam's suit headlamps illuminate the area immediately ahead of her. Cautiously she walks down the aisle between the seats, her boots clacking against the metallic floor, suit swinging from side to side to light up the dark empty spaces. She pauses to glance into the storage racks which are all empty but further down the gangway there's a half open crate made of some kind of toughened polycarbonate shell, green coloured. Hinged on one side it opens up like a briefcase and inside it is lined with a spongy protective foam, with a shape cut-out, some kind of weapon. The seats and other surfaces are covered in a thin layer of methane frost. None of the electronic equipment seems to be powered on, the screens in the backs of the seats are blank. There is no sign of life in the cabin, no movement, no sounds. It is silent like a grave.
It is difficult to see in the thick orange haze but there's something visible on the horizon, moving rapidly. It's all angular, like some kind of insect. The bright silver-white evident even at this distance. The thick atmosphere rippling. It seems to be a copter.
“Maybe we can at least hide in the shuttle. Do we have time to rig a camera up so we can watch what happens? Maybe that soldier’s suit has a head cam.” She goes to look.
Although no one can see anything through the orange haze, the thick Titan atmosphere does carry sound well, and Jojo can hear a distinctive whirring sound, like the noise made by copter turbines.
Nicole examines the corpse but there's no mounted cameras. She does think there might be cameras on the shuttle as part of the standard sensory array.
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Sam tries the door to the cockpit and it slides openly with a slight hiss, she does notice signs of damage to the edge of the door, like someone has tried to force it. Inside the cabin the equipment is powered up but the lights are dim. The view out the large windows is the same relentless orange snow, blurred by the layer of methane ice frozen onto the outside. There's no frost on any of the surfaces.
In front of the instrument panels are two flight seats. Sam goes to sit in one to try and activate the shuttle. As she moves around the chairs, she feels the legs of her suit bumping into something. In the narrow space it is difficult to get a good look with the Titan suit's narrow field of vision, but looking down she sees what looks like a body, lying across the ground in front of the seats. An orange Titan surface suit. The figure is face down but the back of the helmet has a ragged hole.
"We got another corpse here!" calls Sam, as she continues trying to start the shuttle. "There's a hole in the back of its helmet. I've got no time to check it out now, but the rest of you can. We need to take off before whatever it is gets here!"
Jojo grabs the body by the shoulders and tries to haul it out of the cockpit. It's more difficult than it seems, despite the low gravity and his android strength. The cockpit is quite cramped and he finds it hard to manoeuvre the unwieldy Titan suit past the seats, equipment, and people. By the time he's got the body into the main cabin everyone has had the chance to get a good look at the wounds. As well as the ragged hole in the back of the helmet, all blackened and twisted metal and blood, the front visor is spattered with gore and flesh, it is cracked in some places and in others there are holes torn through it.
Whoever was in this suit is unrecognisable, their face shredded and spattered all over the inside of the suit visor. But there's something about the slim form that is reminiscent of Pilot Ling Li.
While the face is wrecked beyond recognition, Jojo's advanced pattern recognition subroutines immediately determine from the suit and body proportions that this is the corpse of Pilot Ling Li.
From the entry wound in the back of the head to the exit wound in the face, this looks like someone was executed. A shotgun fired into the back of their head from close range.
Once she's inside the cockpit Nicole looks around for any signs of weapon systems. While she doesn't know much about the instruments in an interplanetary shuttle there's certainly nothing here suggestive of any kind of significant weapons. Which is not particularly surprising since this is a civilian shuttle.
Soon the whirring of copter turbines is audible to everyone. And in the distance, materialising through the thick orange haze, there's something becoming visible on the horizon, moving rapidly, growing in size. It's all angular, like an oversized insect. The thick atmosphere rippling around the bright silver-white shell. It's a copter. Flying directly towards the shuttle. Getting larger and larger. Approaching very quickly indeed. Too fast to easily slow down.
'Movin' fast,' notes Corporal Booth languidly. Like he doesn't get the significance of it. Then he gestures at the instrument panel 'Anyone fly this?'Isabella, looking rather less relaxed about the approaching copter, pushes past him and starts jabbing the controls, 'I'm no expert but I might be able to get it started.'
After about thirty seconds Isabella stops frantically typing into the control panel. 'I'm not a pilot but I've designed enough avionics to know how this thing works. I've started the initiation sequence and it's going to take about fifteen minutes before that's completed. Taking off before that's done is risky, really risky. Once the sequence is finished we can take off from Titan under the autopilot. The transponder is still disabled so I don't know what happens when we leave the atmosphere.'
Wow, you guys are lucky. Isabella only has 30% in Pilot (Space) but she made it. If you want to get the sensor array working to activate the cameras and other sensors then that'd be a Computer Use, Isabella is too busy to muck about with the cameras. Obviously if you wait until the initiation sequence is completed then that copter is going to arrive.
"Could that be Ling Li?" asks Sam, trying to activate the sensors. "I can't get the sensors going. Someone else give it a try. And we should lock the shuttle once everyone's aboard. That should keep them out until we take off, unless of course they go in guns blazing."
INT roll (75% stat) about the corpse: d%
Computer Use roll (55% skill) to activate the sensors: d%
“That copter’s certainly in a rush-almost flying too fast to be safe. Does it look like it’s on a collision course, Sam? Can we see if anything’s chasing it on the sensors?” Nicole notices the corpse’s head.
“For what it’s worth, this guy looks like he was shot at point blank - an execution maybe.”
She watches Corporal Booth, wondering why he’s not bothered by the copter.
Jojo smoothly uncovers the data connector under his nail and interfaces with the cockpit sensor controls. In a matter of seconds he has booted up most of the external sensors and is displaying the output on the monitors. The cameras show the copter bobbing through the orange sky at high speed, it is difficult to tell at this distance but the cockpit seems crowded, like there's more people in there, more than the usual pilot and co-pilot. And the aircraft's trajectory is odd, as well as bobbing up and down unpredictably it is also sheering off to the side, like whoever is flying it doesn't have full control. While it isn't exactly on a collision course it is certainly flying directly towards the shuttle. Interfacing with the sensors Jojo uses some of the near infrared detectors and active radar but can't identify anything that might be chasing the copter.
Sam isn't sure what's going on with Corporal Booth. On the one hand he seems quite shaken by what he's seen down in the alien structure. On the other, he probably doesn't know anything about what happened in Benedict's Rest so he might not be quite so worried about a copter coming from that direction.
"If they've gone crazy, they might try to crash into us," says Sam. "Or if their copter is damaged. It looks like they can't steer it well."
Given my engineering knowledge of shuttles and copters, can I assess how badly the shuttle (and its occupants) would be damaged in the event of a collision?
It is pretty clear to Sam and everyone else that at the rate it is going, if the copter crashes it is going to seriously the injure or kill the occupants, even in the weak gravity of Titan. Exactly what it would do to them if it hit the shuttle is less clear.
Sam knows that shuttles are designed for atmospheric insertion and are thus pretty tough. But a direct hit on something vital like the cockpit or the engine and all bets are off.
Nicole isn't sure what's going on with Corporal Booth. On the one hand he seems quite shaken by what he's seen down in the alien structure. On the other, he probably doesn't know anything about what happened in Benedict's Rest so he might not be quite so worried about a copter coming from that direction.
OOC: Sorry - posted that for Sam instead of Nicole up the thread.
"Shuttles are tough," says Sam, "and a collision will damage the copter a lot worse than it does us. Of course, if the engine or the cockpit take a direct hit, we're in trouble. Then again, if we go out there and it lands on us, we'll be a lot more vulnerable. Our best bet is to take off before it gets here."
