It looks just like it did in the briefing, the squat little structure that you knew was only the tip of the facility, the other 80% of it buried under the rock of one of the ten moons (UB-VIc) surrounding the Neptunian world. Above it, a long narrow superstructure of elevators, pipes and conduits up to the radial docking rings, allowing for up to six ships to docked with the station at one time, easily accommodating the two system ships and up to four visiting vessels for patrols and resupply missions. Currently, an Elephant-class transport is docked along with the Harald Wartooth and the Randver.

The station is operational, pressurized but seemingly empty and silent. No visible damage or other signs of struggle have been reported yet...

Strangely, the climate is warmer than should be expected in a standard Hegemony installation. Up by several degrees above regulation.

Oscar extended his hand to shake once the ships had completed docking and Oscar made to join the Randver boarding party. "Good to see you, Shipmaster," he said in a formal greeting of captains before looking around. "I am thinking that we might need to clear the transport first to see if they have any repair supplies we can commandeer. We also wouldn't want her secrets sneaking upon us." Oscar gave a glance at his laspistol in hand and the multitool near his belt. He made a quick gesture on the dataslate to link the local network of the Randver and the Wartooth. He passed the dataslate to Zazan. "Our comms array was lost in the fight. I am requesting that the Wartooth be able to piggyback signals from your ship to the rest of the squadron while we are docked."

Zazan nods as he steps within inches of the shipmaster to converse. "Eh...zat will not be a problem. I share your concerns about ze transport, I am tempted to have her reactor started and ready to go. My XO has orders to cut and rejoin ze squadron if trouble finds us.

While you are in ze black, I have found that secret is certainly omnipresent, perhaps omnipotent. Secret killed the Sigfred afterall."

Nodding skyward, "Ze hegemony is good at finding new and interesting cultures willing to shoot at it, of zis I am certain. And shoot they did. Ze cruiser is quite frightening. "

Oscar nodded at the fellow Bothislian, not wanting to say anything further about Secret. "If anything, the Hegemony certainly will want to pick it apart to see if they can adapt anything to our Fleet ships. I, for certain, will be looking into that radiation weapon. Secret only knows why these ships are here, at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Sable-One."

"Sharing a language leads me to believe ze ships share an origin at least. I am sure Hegemony intelligence will find some answers but conveniently  neglect to inform us."

Zazan unshoulders his void carbine and gestures deeper into the outpost. "But we should press on, before our people lose sharpness. I will send a few men to ze transport."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:43, Wed 12 May 2021.

Oscar did a final check on his gear before gesturing towards the path that would take them to the station interior. "The place is a bit warmer than normal. If we can get to a data port or terminal of some kind, I might be able to see what exactly is going on. I'm no wire jockey but knowing how to read failing systems gets you much farther than not in the salvage business."

When they proceeded, Oscar made sure that his cybernetically enhanced eyes did their job, doing quick scans in multiple spectrums to ensure nothing major would be able to surprise them.

A quick check of the local display near the umbilical lift confirmed a higher temperature than normal. The system appears to have centrally overridden from the control bunker down at the lowest level of the base, buried in the rock of the moon. If there were any survivors left, that is where they would be, barricaded in the command room with the blast doors locked and barred, surviving on emergency life support. Of course if there was anyone there, why would there be no SOS message?

The center of the docking hub held the entrance to the elevator and the six pathways towards the docking rings, radiating out from the center of the hub like spokes of a wheel. You could go down to the main base or transfer over to the docked Elephant-class transport and start your search there or at least cover a possible retreat.

Security cameras dotted the hub and as far as you could tell, they were working still.

Oscar made a motion to the nearest camera for Zazan and then ensured that he could be seen fully in view. The insignia of the Hegemony was likely not a welcome sight if the pirates had holed up in the command bunker. Otherwise, the survivors of the raid would know that the Fleet would not allow themselves into a vulnerable position like docking with the station unless battle in the void was over.

“If you have men to cover our backs, I suggest we explore the base and find out who exactly is holed up here.”

Nodding to his NCO "Take 3 and ze snipe and secure ze transport. If possible get her reactor online. Fall back and comm if you run into trouble."

The Elephant-class transport is massive, by far the largest ship in the system as far as you know. It's not capable of FTL transit, but uses the same or similar gravitic drive system as your ships to move rapidly throughout the system. According to the briefing, there should be two system ships attached to this station but there's only one here. The others location is unknown. It could carry thousands of tons of cargo, but it couldn't do much else. A useful workhorse in a system like this, capable of setting the stage for further military expansion or colonization.

The elevator down awaits... do you split up your small forces now? Only Oscar alone and Zazan and his Troopers, plus a Medtech and Engine Snipe... a small group of agents.

"....wait, this outpost had two ships, no?" Zazan pauses to send a message out of the well.

"On second thought, let us clear out ze station first. If we can get access to ze control room, we can check ze security cameras and see just what happened here.

Would save us crawling around blindly inside the elephant."

“Agreed. If anyone is hiding, they will have to take just as long waiting for a search party to overlook them. The command bunker should indeed be our priority. Let us find those answers.”

The elevator ride down is tense, only the sound of the lift motors can be heard and the nervous shifting of the boarding party as they descend to the surface of the moon. The platform comes to a halt and the doors open, revealing an empty hallway and... the first signs of trouble. Bullet holes pock the deck, ceiling and walls... several overhead lighting units have been struck and shattered, no longer functioning. Spatters of dark red blood coat surfaces ahead.

There are no signs of defensive structures or preparations, but based on the location of the bullet holes and blood stains you conclude that someone exiting the elevator opened fire towards the hallway ahead of you, perhaps in a surprise attack. The lack of signs of energy weapon marks suggests to you that the attackers were armed only with projectile weaponry.

The obvious camera emplacements have been shot repeatedly, the glass and electronics shattered. There are no bodies, weapons or any discarded equipment here, just a corridor that according to your briefing material should lead to the main living quarters and leisure rooms.

Captain Mysh gestures silently to the traces and signals the Astral Troopers to set up overlapping lines of fire and cautiously advance.

He wishes that the station was voided so their advance would be silent but no use crying over slagged purifiers as the saying goes.

Pushing into the barracks and living quarters, you see this is where the bulk of the combat was. It was easy to imagine a hasty defense, as you saw crates and bunks overturned and scattered bloodstains and weapon impacts. The attackers took the defenders mostly by surprised, some scattered return fire was visible but aside from that, again, no bodies, no weapons. Personal monitors and data feeds were offline, showing only static and a [OFFLINE] message. No alarms and again, the cameras have been destroyed. Almost no sound but the life support system fans makes for an eerie sweep of the structure.

From here, you would have to descend via stairs further into the complex, the control center and armory being buried at the very bottom of this rock.

Oscar swept the room after the troopers cleared it. He set his optics to a broad spectrum scan, trusting the cybernetic interface to register any differences as a false color spike on his visuals. He turned to Zazan and pointed at the destroyed cameras.

“If they intended to hold this place, they blinded themselves on the way in. Secret knows why, but I have a feeling they weren’t planning on staying.”

".....hmm. I don't like ze lay of it. Back when we had Brotherhood Zealots to worry about, they had a habit of detonating ships when backed into a corner. Sure ze crew died but half of ours would be bits of char as well.

Ze universe would be worse off without our beautiful faces in it.

Oscar nervously flexed his grip on the laspistol near his hip. Realizing what he was doing, Oscar slowly eased his hand away and took a deep breath, giving Zazan a wry smile.

“Too true! Let’s get this done and get back to our ships. I’d prefer not to give these frakking mysteries anymore time to fester. After all, we have to get our faces back so the Fleet can make some proper propaganda posters for once!”

Oscar scans the rooms with his cybernetic eyes, picking up the various EM signals. You realize there isn't much in the way of wireless communication going on, most of the transmissions are coming from your squad. They have have disabled the commnet on the station.

Thermal shows that the ambient temperature is higher than standard as reported from the life support panel earlier. No indication of nearby individuals or hostiles of any kind. In fact, the room seems still, only disturbed now that you've arrived.

Oscar confirmed the data before he spoke. “Nothing but warm air here. Let’s keep pressing and find out more.”

Zazan nods, taking up an overwatch position with his void carbine.

Your team spends the next 20 minutes clearing the standard rooms, medbay, storage, workshops, the various standard facilities on an asteroid base, arranged in several levels with the most critical chambers below the less vital in case of deep bombardment, until they reach what was a secure blast door, it's been slagged, most likely by thermal lances or shaped charges of some kind. Primitive but effective demolitions. Beyond you find the station CIC, not all that dissimilar from any kind of warship CIC, various sensor stations, processor banks and more. Here is the first place you've not seen signs of small arms fire. No bullet holes or energy burns, but there is some blood.

Here, you are immediately presented with three unexpected developments:
First, the various displays make it clear that the listening post is no longer connected to the comm network. It's a bunch of useless terminals and displays unless it can contact the servers and the antennas.
Second, there is a large blast door on the other side of the room which is sealed and according to your schematics, should not exist. This should be the lowest chamber in the facility.
Thirdly, right in the middle of the CIC, is a gravcar sized nuclear warhead with a countdown timer using numerals you're not familiar with, ticking away rapidly....

Oscar stared at the nuke with surprise before shaking his head. His voice was low and serious. "Shipmaster Mysh, get your men out of here. This thing looks unstable and if I mess up, I don't want you caught in the blast." Using the piggybacked comm signal, he reached out to his ship.

++Helm, this is Wartooth Actual. break away from the station and hold at a minimum safe distance plus fifty percent. King Squadron, Wartooth Actual is going to attempt to disengage the device. We can't risk Grendel seizing another chance to attack us. Just give us some time to clear the area. I'm going to have to start soon. We don't know how much time is left, even if we could get the snuffers in position.++

His face a mask, Zazan draws himself to full height and issues a chrisp order. "Sailors of the Randver, Salute!"and he himself salutes the captain of the Wartooth. The gesture a thanks he can give in this space and time.

"We are leaving." He and his crew begin exfiltration back to their ship.

The boarding crew, aside from Captain Hargrave, begin to retreat back to their ships.

Oscar returned the salute and began to examine the device. He didn't know the numerals, or the yield, or the numerous other things that would have made disarming it easier. He would give a few minutes to the Zazan get as far as he could with his sailors.

Every device, at least of similar technology levels, obeyed certain principles. Due to the primitive nature of what the squadron had seen so far, Oscar carefully began to annotate components that looked either familiar or he could reasonably guess the function.

It wasn't uncommon to find unexploded munitions in decommissioned ships. Missiles and smart bombs from fighter craft, torpedoes in launch bays, and even jury-rigged support reactors during battle repairs that had been left for the salvage crews to deal with afterwards. Oscar had seen them all and he had the confidence to dismantle them all. This device was going to be no different now.

"Wartooth Actual is beginning disarmament of the device. Looks like they spliced a...", he began to dictate his task so that, if the worst happened, the recording would be able to give the next poor soul a better chance.

OOC:08:28, Today: Oscar Hargrave rolled 12 using 2d6+2.  Postech diffusion.

As you investigate the device, it becomes clear that this was a jury-rigged attempt at a bomb. You think the primary warhead is probably a stripped out nuclear torpedo warhead which has had its detonator connected to a primitive computer system to handle the countdown and possibly countermeasures. It reminds you of old ships you've found, relics lost centuries ago from the very early days of FTL travel in the Hegemony. Maybe even older, in a lot of ways, these look like devices you've seen in naval and technology museums.

First you quickly strip a couple of shielding wraps off your Veritech datapad and and splice the optical fiber feeds into what looks like the detonator's jury-rigged timer and quickly set up a repeating pulse into the system, disrupting it's timing through brute force and smart routing, probing for weaknesses. Quickly, you start to see the benefit: The computer system is crashing and rebooting, trying to maintain it's own countdown, but the timer seems to be slowing. Fault tolerance being abused in full here, not that any primitive computer could have been designed to handle this kind of noise. You've given yourself some more time.

Inside your helmet, you're sweating, the climate systems whirring as they accommodate your rising temperature and pump in colder recycled air to keep you closer to comfortable as you take your metatool to the bundle of cables and wires. You trace out a dozen cables, then two and three dozen. It's a rat's nest, clearly cobbled together at the last minute. A component bomb-maker would have set up trip-wires, something cut that would instantly cause the detonator to go off.

However, they had limitations. You were fairly certain that they were using a stripped military nuclear torpedo and it's own detonator. A detonator based on a proximity fuze system. Opening the access panel by burning out the screws and lifting the plate away, you find the mechanism inside the detonator. Multi-mode sensor that would have been set in the housing the torpedo, set to calculate distance to the target and then send a bi-phase electrical signal to the atomic core and set off the weapon. That's the weak point, if the sensors are no longer connected to the detonator, it cannot receive a detonate signal. Tense minutes pass as you carefully sever each sensor processor upstream of the bi-phase conduit.

By the time you finish triple checking, certain that you've disarmed the bomb, you're sitting on the deck in a cold sweat, just now realizing that you're receiving comms from Valdar and the rest of the squadron.

Oscar listened to the sound of his own breathing and the pounding of his pulse in his ears. He tried to calm himself with a few deep breaths but it didn't seem to be working. The adrenaline that had pumped through his veins during the disarm had seemingly evaporated and now left him shaky and nearly in shock. it was more than a minute after he finished when Oscar realized that he had sat down. Keying the mic, he went out on a shaky voice.

++King Squadron, this is Wartooth Actual. Device has been disabled. I say again; device is disabled. Requesting extraction.++
This message was last edited by the player at 17:26, Tue 22 June 2021.

Hearing the news on the comms, Captain Mysh speaks to the Troopers, "One crisis has been averted by ze talents of Captain Hargrave.  As far as I am concerned, we all owe ze man our lives.

PW," refering to his NCO, "select a trooper to be posted sentry outside the transport. Instruct them to stay out of sight and avoid trouble, we just need to know if hostiles exit the transport and might catch us unawares.

Now, double-time back to ze control room."

Oscar sat on the deck of the control center, taking deep breaths when he remembered to. He could wait for the troopers. There was no rush. He kept repeating the mantra "It's been disarmed," to himself over and over. He could hear a rattle and realized that his gloves were shaky and knocking on the faceplate of his helmet. Oscar was a mess of nerves and it showed.

The squadron scrambles to keep up with the changing events, the Valdar no longer needed to block the hydrogen bomb sitting in the command center, there were still several issues. One, being the communications were down on the listening post, without restoring the local comm server and bringing the station core back online with the rest of the net, you couldn't learn anything more about what the listening post had seen and recorded either onboard or in system. Further more, there was no way to send a messenger drone back to report your status.

Additionally, the Elephant-class transport was still an unknown, a ship that big could hide any number of surprises.

Finally, the unexplained extra blast door in the command center. It shouldn't be there according to your schematics.

Everyone is on edge, stretched to the limit of exhaustion by two space battles and securing the Listening Post 81. For the moment, things seemed to be under control and the crew's mettle had been tested harshly.

Captain Mysh turns his boarding party around a d starts heading back to the command room. Sensing the incoming lull in operations, Zazan comms his XO.

"Harken Ensign Wardiaz. Cancel action stations and recommence watches. Please give ze crew praise for a job well done. I believe commendations for Gunnery, Nav, and damage control are in order.

Keep whatever scopes you can on ze transport. We are posting sentries inside ze station as well. We may need some engineering station-side to help get ze comms back up and running. I will keep ze Randver posted. Make sure you rest yourself as well."

Upon reaching the command post and seeing Captain Hargrave sitting on the deck Zazan took the liberty of assuming provisional command of the shore party. "Troopers of King Squadron, you have performed admirably. We have a few moments respite so I want sentries posted outside and one at zat vault door, Ze rest of you get what sleep you can. Proven warriors, send another man to watch the transport."

Squatting down beside captain Hargrave Zazan drops his voice. "You've done good captain, get some rest. I will take a look and see what I can see. You've saved lives today.

Zazan steps over to the terminals and gives them a once-over.

05:32, Today: Zazan Mysh rolled 8 using 2d6+1.  Computers - Station terminals.

Oscar looked up at Zazan and nodded. "Thank you. King Squadron is going to need a few repairs in any case. I better go oversee the work orders," Oscar replied and left the command center. The repair effort was his responsibility now that the immediate threat of the nuke was over. Captain Hargrave made his way back to the Wartooth and resumed command.

Captain Mysh looks over the systems, it looks like most of the fiber had been melted or cut, someone had gone through a very crude but thorough effort to shut the terminals off from the main data servers. These machines would likely be kept in nearby mainframe rooms, climate controlled, access restricted and hardened against bombardment or radiation. Luckily, part of the mission package included access codes and schematics of the LP security systems so you could initiate a full recovery in the case of catastrophic failure.

Opening the mainframe rooms, you found that they were basically in decent shape. The doors had been damaged in an attempt for force them open from the outside, but they did their job and kept out the intruders. Finally, one thing had gone right. With the access codes you were able to activate the override and open the security doors. Inside, the mainframes were intact although someone had taken the extra step of frying the datalink manager to keep it from being accessed externally.

All told, you'd need probably a handful of skilled technicians, some tools from your ship and some extra parts and supplies to replace the cables and the datalink manager and get the LP commnet back online and the mainframe connected. You estimate with 3-4 techs and some time to scrounge up replacement parts on your ships and on the station, you can probably have everything back up and running in 6 hours.

Acknowledgement for orders come through and the few combat experienced troopers you have fan out throughout the large complex, taking up posts at locations in question and providing hourly updates as well as their own helmet cam feeds for increased awareness. The mood is tense and there's a feeling that the squadron lacks the manpower to do this much, but there's no choice.

Mysh sets about organizing the repair efforts, radioing back to the Wartooth and Randver to requisition the appropriate supplies. He also taps his officers and enlisted crew for the expertise to execute the repairs.

Heading back to the ships personally to assist in grabbing equipment, Zazan is thankful that while his crew were not ideal, there was a level of order to the efforts.

The work is drudgery after the battle and there is little time for proper rest or recovery, Zazan finds himself with several other technicians from his ship and throughout the squadron, anyone who could be spared from the repair efforts to work at re-cabling the station with fiber optic lines and repairing the network infrastructure.

Also this is simpler than patching up a starship, in many ways, it is far more critical. Once complete, you should be able to access the comm and sensor logs of the listening post and more critically, send a courier drone back to friendly space with a message and whatever data the listening post had gathered since the last update.

Several hours in, he realizes that between the ships stores and what they had available in the modest techbay on the listening post, they have enough cabling, omnichips and replacement parts to either get the primary datacore connected to the main base console, or to repair the burned out comms array connecting to the courier drone silos.

It's possible to spend longer and cannibalize either King Squadron ships, the Elephant or the listen post to find more parts, although it's going to be a rough job cutting everything down to bare bones to get what you need to bring both systems online.

Zazan pushes past the exhaustion and works on the drone package per the discussion with other captains.

11:22, Today: Zazan Mysh rolled 11 using 2d6+1.  Computer check to get drone system up and running. .

As you go to load the data into the system, you realize right before it's too late, that there's already a full data buffer waiting to upload a previous report from the listening post. You can erase it and upload your own data, or you can, sight-unseen, upload whatever the listening post was trying to send out before it was stopped. Presumably this is information regarding the listening posts last report before they were boarded as well as all data and analysis leading up to that point, however, it could easily be something uploaded by the enemy that was prevented from being sent out via drone messenger. The data could probably be retrieved from the buffer with days of work, specialized archeodata software, some VIs and skilled computer engineers. It could take you weeks if you wanted to attempt it and there are no guarantees you would be able to reconstruct it into anything usable or simply lose it all. The message data package, if it was sent from the listening post crew, would also exist uncollated in the station database so the information would be accessible eventually, but that would take a great deal of time to sort through everything for relevant information and recreate the analysts work.

Do you send the pending message or do you erase it to send your own message?


OOC: Excellent roll!

Zazan is approaching wits end. He's in need of sleep and every attempt to figure out what transpired here is met with road blocks. Secrets are well kept and hard earned in the Ultima black system.

But....the best bet King Squadron has to getting reinforcements they need will be to pass the secrets onto the Hegemony.

So Zazan sets about collecting some scrap metal plates and using his metatool, he begins to etch:
ATTENTION! THIS DRONE TO BE QUARANTINED AND ANALYZED. THIS DRONE IS SENT FROM ULTIMA BLACK SIX OUTPOST BY COMMANDER ZAZAN MYSH OF THE INS RANDVER AND ITS DATA STORES MAY CONTAIN THE LAST TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE OUTPOST.

WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED HOSTILES OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. THEIR LANGUAGE APPEARS TO BE OF HINDI ORIGIN. POSSIBLE MULTIPLE FACTIONS, ONE TECHNOLOGALLY ADVANCED, THE OTHER ATOMIC.

KING SQUADRON HAS SECURED PRISONERS AND THE STATION..

Zazan then sets about welding the plate to the drone.

Zazan finishes his makeshift warning sign and then realizes that he actually doesn't know where the drone is physically located. A quick consultation of the original schematics given to the crew as part of the mission briefing shows a launch silo hundreds of kilometers away from the main structure, hidden for security. The data is being transmitted through a hardline buried in the rock.

Zazan, calmly sets the plate down. Passes command of the outpost to his proven warrior and trudges back to his ship.

His footsteps echo through the empty outpost. Just a cycled airlock, a passing of command to his XO, or whoever had the bridge, a few hatches and he will be in his quarters. There he will attempt to recombobulate himself after some rest. He's gotten to the point of stupid and there's no helping that. On the bright side it's only temporary.