Session Two: A Signal in the Dark

General Summary

While in Fold-Space, The Morningstar answered an automated distress beacon from The Sorghum. Jack Dumah, the pilot, had made a successful hard dock with the star-freighter. Ramiel, Sand, Gabriel, and Jack prepare to cross over to investigate. Korvas Metatron stays onboard the Morningstar, partially to keep an eye on Angelique who has joined the crew as a guest, or a cook?   As the crew prepares for the boarding, Angelique approaches Sandalphon and asks, "Can I go too Sandy?"   "Sure. Absolutely. Let's get her a suit." Sand says enthusiastically.   Korvas has Angelique sign a waiver of responsibility. And then sets up a workstation to monitor the crews progress from the safety of the Morningstar.   After crossing over to The Sorghum, and cycling through its airlock, the crew find themselves in a darkened corridor. The lighting overhead sputters, vainly struggling to dispel the gloom surrounding them. The crew starts to explore the Sorghum heading for the bridge. They see signs of fighting from pirate raiders, but no bodies. Sand leads the way, walking with purpose. Jack spots a trip-wire just before Sand could trigger it, and quickly stops Sand from continuing. A web of trip-wires crisscross the hallway for about 2 meters to a grapefruit sized something of probable explosive intent. Gabriel studies the situation for a clear path, makes some quick calculations, and crosses through the trip-wire trap. Sand takes several steps back and motions Angelique behind him to shield her with his armored body. Ramiel takes one step back. Jack stands still, confident in Gabriel's abilities. Gabriel clearly points out the path to walk safely through the trip-wires. Jack joins him and together they examine the device. Gabriel easily disconnects the grenade from the trigger mechanism.   Meanwhile, back on the Morningstar, Korvas has gained access to the Sorghum's computer systems through the docking rings link. He checks for life-signs, but all of the detectors report offline.   "That seems deliberate." he mutters to himself. He turns on his mic and says, "You may want to look out. The sensors have been knocked out."   The crew reaches the Sorghum's bridge. The door is open. Sand calls out, "Hello, anybody here? We're from the Morningstar. We're here to help." There is no response. "We got your beacon." he continued. Once they entered the bridge they find sliced up clothes in piles. of the six piles of clothes, two appear to be what you would expect a pirate to wear. they are caked in dried blood. the rest of the clothes are ship crew uniforms. these are significantly less bloody.   Jack attempts to stabilize the ships spin, but can tell that some kind of sabotage has been done to the controls. He confidently, and somewhat recklessly tries anyway and stabilizes the ship. Then he locks all pilot level systems to his bio-metric signature.   Korvas pulls the crew files and finds that the crew had ten crew members.   Angelique suggests turning off the distress beacon. Ramiel makes sure it stays on.   Angelique, Jack and Gabriel stays on the bridge while the Sand and Ramiel begins a room by room search for survivors.   Sand enters the captains quarters, the active computer screen giving of a soft glow. Ramiel, still in the hallway, sees something out of the corner of his eye down the corridor away from the bridge. A little girl holding a rag-doll beckons him and turns out of sight down the hallway. Ramiel grabs Sand by the shoulder and pulls him out of the room. He points down the corridor and heads after the little girl. Sand calls after him, "I'll be right there." and goes back into the room to examine the computer.   Ramiel chases after the girl, flipping his night-vision on to cut through the gloom. He turns the corner and sees a flash of motion turning the next corner. He turns the next corner and moves down that hallway. He stops at a door. He didn't see the door cycle, but he knows she's inside. He listens at the door and hears nothing. He opens the door and is sucked into the room by the open vacuum on the other side. That room had been breached. He catches himself before being swept out into the void. In the room he found the child's rag-doll and a odd toaster sized object. He grabs both and leave the room, closing the door behind him. He marks the door as open to the void   The rest of the crew feel a gust of wind. A klaxon goes off on the bridge. Somewhere an automated bulkhead closes in response to the breach.   Sand found an after-action pirate report dated three months past. Pirates were driven off. Only three crew members survived, one was badly injured.   Korvas works his magic on the computer systems to open the sealed bulkhead so Ramiel can return to the bridge. Ramiel recounts his experience. and identifies the odd object as a Medical Assistant. They discuss their next actions. Korvas suggests returning to the Marigold for a break. Thoughts of Ramiel's possible fold-mad hallucination coloring his opinion. Ramiel wants to check the cargo hold. Sand wants to just get it all done now.   Korvas accesses the Sorghum's coms and brodcasts, "Attention any crew members of the Sorghum. My name is, well, that's not important right now. But I represent a very powerful corporation that is here to rescue you evidently. If you are on board and need rescue, please come to the main ships corridor and make yourself seen or heard. We have crew members on board who are willing to assist. If you are a threat or an enemy, be warned that we are very capable soldiers and fighters and we will lay waste to anyone who tries to cause harm. We understand that there are pirate activities in the area, and we are not to be trifled with."   The Crew set out to finish the room by room search. Angelique wants to stay on the Sorghum's bridge because she is frightened. Jack makes it bluntly clear that staying here is not one of her options. She pouts and follows along.   After about an hour and a half they've searched the crew sections of the ship. They move to the cargo section of the ship. They descend through a hatch to a spine-ward corridor that gives access to the four cargo holds of the Sorghum. The hallway is much, much darker than it should be. Korvas reports that the ship shows fill power going to the lights. As the crew's eyes become adjusted to the light they notice things draping from the ceiling at both ends of the corridor. between them and the cargo doors. They look like wires, ropes, chains, cords, and other things dangling down about shoulder length. Sand pulls out his sword and heads to the aft. As he approaches the dangling flotsam, he asks, "I don't know much about ship's, but does this look right?"   "Highly irregular." Gabriel responds.   Ramiel duck-walks under the odd curtains, and notices that the first several feet are wired into the lights. They are most definitely charged. Ramiel calls out his observation. Sand requests Korvas to kill the lights in this section. Korvas complies, casting the crew into darkness, besides their own limited lights. As Ramiel continues his awkward progression, he notices that the cords and ropes begin to contain bones. Bloodstained, poorly stripped bones tied to the ropes as decoration. Ramiel can see that the left cargo bay is open.   Angelique says with a tremble in her voice, "Do I have to go through that?"   "You can be by yourself." Ramiel says coldly.   She reluctantly agrees and follows along.   As they reach the open cargo bay door they hear a voice that sounds like it hasn't spoken in a long time, "Meat is meat. Meat is meat. Dat's wut dey told em. Dat's what must be true. Wot does you taste like? Wot's da taste of yew?"   And then the "tik, tik, tik." of a grenade landing at their feet.   See you next week!

Rewards Granted

Medical Assistant Artifact (asset for medical tasks)   Depletion: 1 in 100

Created Content

Ghost Child - 9 years, 4"1', emaciated thin, pale, blue eyes, brown hair. carried a rag-doll which is now in Ramiel's possession.