Communications Logs: Seaford Exploration
KNIGHT-SPECIALIST SAM, virtual space/remote connection: Marblehall, Sam. KNIGHT-ESPATIER WHITWORTH, close orbit: Go for Marblehall? SAM: I don't think these platforms should be recovered. Not the boarding pod, either. I know the reason why these guys didn't respond to hails. This is a biomed facility. WHITWORTH: Good thing your core is upstairs then, wouldn't want to leave you stranded. SAM: A'firm. There's some auto-fabs here; I'll reconfigure them for the production of Litebodies and call in the others... ... SAM:...pretty significant cryostasis and prep facilities. There's a few occupied pods, but, judging by the fomite sensor readings, whatever's in the air and presumably clinging to the pod exteriors is not something we would want to bring into the same environment where we could open the pods without killing the occupants. WHITWORTH: But they'd probably have the only knowledge of what specifically they were cooking here. Those drives were too heavily encrypted for us to crack without recovery and, obviously, I'm not asking you to recover them. WHITWORTH: Say, what if we defrost them but leave the pods sealed? We could communicate with them without exposing them to the pathogens and just freeze them up when we're done. SAM: I doubt they'd be open to any inducements to talk in that case. What are we supposed to offer them, the sweet release of death? They've trapped themselves pretty solidly in this situation. WHITWORTH: What about decontamination? We clean and irradiate the crap out of everything, reseed the CELSS, then 'repatriate' them to the world of the living. SAM: A potential option. I need to do more research on these pathogens to see how feasible that might be... ... SAM (to prisoners): This is a time of war. We might be able to negotiate the waiving of the standard punishment for this crime per the Code if you- CKV MARBLEHALL AI: REMOTE CONNECTION TERMINATED (External multispectral scopes register a burst of particle and x-ray radiation as a nuclear reactor aboard the Seaford detonates, destroying the station and projecting a spherical cloud of debris outward) KNIGHT-AIRMAN GORDON (distant): Evasive action! WHITWORTH: What happened? SAM (from within local network): Failsafe self-destruct, I imagine. WHITWORTH: Well, shit. Master-Knight Hendricks isn't going to like this.
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