Rubato Tales SD102108-Space Zombie Ogre Magi!

Rubato Tales STELLARDATE 102081: Space Zombie Ogre Magi!
Note: The following article does not in fact exist anymore, Aerick's journal instead details a short passage about Victorian clothing and the fashionable aspects of the wimple and corset and a rather vitriolic dialog with Maria about the need to wear one shortly, and why rib removal will make life so much easier for a bit, and besides the Doc can put one back in anyway when we leave, seesh does no one on the ship care about decent clothing when visiting new ports of call.

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SCANNING, SCANNING...
Capn Maggie decided we should engage in a series of short skips to our next destination, a mining operation in the LAL 21285 stellar system, aka Grunweld.

The habitable planet of the system is a throwback world, something like a luddite style theme park, ren faire and loonie bin for people who thought the Austro-Hungarian Empire during its Victorian Era was the height of civilization. The apparently eschew modern technology even more than my companions, none of whom seem to have the vaguest idea what a nano-manipulator is or why the Cyberdyne Widgetnanodock is the coolest thing ever. Still to each his own.

Delivering the cargo was not a problem as we pulled into the gas mining operation around the 4th planet in the system a Superjovian class world. It was during this time that we picket up a distress beacon from a ship in a higher and more distant orbit. Naturally we went to help the crew of such a distressed ship and headed right over.

The ship turned out to be a Drake Class Marine Escort Picket named the Hawkins and we could pick up very few signs of life and a ship with virtually no external damage or life signs, although it is hard to scan military ships. Maggie maneuvered us near it and we shot a line over and then spacewalked over to it. The hatch need some convincing to work but a bit of nanowizardry was all that was needed and some coding.

Zechi went in first since he was in the mech and it seemed safe enough so the rest of us entered. Along with my companions from our Ceres adventure, Maria, Annarug, and Jacques, the rest of the crew joined us, our pilot Leslie Tyson, some sort of self styled “spacetrucker,” the aforemention Zechi a mech operator and Jackson Fillmore Clinton our superstitious engineer.

Upon entering we discovered that the ship was essentially running on minimal support and although it had a breathable atmosphere only Jacques and Annarug decided to fold their helmets after Annarug said the air was clean. Something he did just after Jacques had already tested it by opening his helmet!

I summoned a remote and quickly scouted the science deck and found no signs of life. We decided to split up into pairs and search out the rest of the ship. Jacques and Jackson checked out the main deck while Zechi and his mech headed for cargo, Annarug, Maria, Tyson and I headed ot scan different parts of the science deck after we ascertained the bridge had been locked down.

Annarug discovered some weird biopods that had apparently been opened and was perusing medical records about the ships activities while I am Maria checked on the computer and security. They were suppose to deliver a cargo to Grunweld 4A and distant moon of the Superjovian planet although we found it off no emergency response had come from there. Many possibilities for a lack of response were discussed with Jacques ”its' Space Zombies” being as likely as any.

While Maria and I looked into the security data, which all when blank after one of the pods was spotted opening, Jackson discovered bodies of 8 of the 12 crewmen in their bunks, dead. Annarug discovered that a small puncture wound on their necks was the killing blow and I ascertained that some bloody nanomanipulation was going to preserve the bodies by draining them of oxygen apparently we were to discover, for who knows what reason. Although Jacques did insist this was proof of Space Zombies...

We decided to use the torch on Zechi's mech to cut our way into the Engineering compartment as both it and the Cargo bay were sealed off. Meanwhile Annarug, whom we all decided was best to call Doc at this point did autopsies on the bodies. He seemed overly fond of autopsies in my book but eh.

When we finally got into engineering it was a gruesome scene, the chief engineer lay dead splatted against the far wall and a huge arm, obviously both cybernetic, synthorganic and nanoactive lie on the floor.

After Jackson, Jacques and Tyson made their was to the bridge I and Maria, who insisted that we safety-link ourselves to a rope she attached to the wall, hacked the system and got it to open the door to the bridge with help from some of the others, I dunno what we expected to find but a 7 foot tall ogre doing a performance art piece of interpretive dance which involved the captains internal organs remaining bits was NOT IT!

I quickly closed the doors again but this triggered some sort of preset AI program which activated the ships thrusters, opened every hatch of the ship and vented the air throughout the whole ship. It also let all the space ogres loose. This was not good.

Fortunately I was able to get into the security system which we had looked into earlier and relay all of this to the rest of the crew. It seemed there were 4 of the horrors running loose. One outside the ship apparently shooting at the Rubato, which caused Maggie to back off, way off, as she told us about the Hawkins thrusters firing. Two more from the cargo hold were coming up different hatches and the one in the captains quarters apparently decided to replace interpretive dance with interpretive gunfire.

Things got kinda messy at this point.

Jacques and his rail gun along with Jackson and Tyson engaged on a shootout with the Ogre dancer while Zechi headed to hold the one off coming in a airlock. I managed to convince the computer to shut off the gravplating in the airlock, preventing it from being able from getting enough leverage to rip the door open and between that at Zechi's gunfire it decided to try another airlock instead. Jacques and crew managed to blow apart the one in the bridge and while he headed to help out Zechi, Tyson and Jackson went to work getting this ship under control. Maria also headed to help Zechi while I was trying to aid the computer programing that Jackson was doing. After I finished helping them with that I saw a nanoremoter begin to appear which revealed that one of the ogres must be a nanomanipulator too, fortunately a round of gunfight dispersed it and I left to help out with the firefight developing in the stairwell, meanwhile the Doc seemed to have vanished!

Several railgun slugs, laser blasts, a few shots from some handguns and an awful lot of ducking and dodging later, along with a quick healing on Jacques and we managed to blow apart the violent but apparently creative creatures. Along the way Jackson and Tyson managed to get the ship back under our control and deactivate the AI that had taken over.

Later we found the Doc hiding in one of the Biopods and he revealed the extent of the bioweapons program and testing they were apparently doing. With the fight over we were left with a dilemma.

Do we turn in the ship for salvage and thus get a rather hefty boost to our wealth but run the risk of being “mindwiped” or worse for having stumbled on a Military Black Op or do we loot what we clan, clean off the material and take a few goodies for ourselves before programing the ship to skip over and say hello to LAL 21285 itself for a quick incineration to cover our tracks. While I felt that as good citizens of the Confederation we should do the right thing apparently most of the rest of the crew were less than convinced of the stellar reputation of the government itself. In the end Maggie let us vote on it before making her mind up and I was for the salvage plan Jacques was for the loot idea, while Zechi, Tyson, Jackson and the Doc were waffling. After more discussion Jackson and the Doc were for the loot plan as well and Maggie sided with them at this point. So the others went about grabbing what they could while Maggie programed the Hawkins for its last voyage.

Jackson was able to score one of the ships small fighters while the Doc grabbed medical gear and Jacques headed for the weapons. I decided not to take anything and went to erase any and all records and evidence I had of this adventure which brings me to this moment

...SCAN COMPLETE
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