The problem with going back into imperial space is the whole 'acting like a citizen' thing. In the Outrim you can be yourself but among the imperials you have to mind your Ps and Qs.

So when you went to book a passage out of Mertactor you couldn't react the way you wanted to when the pencil-neck clerk smugly told you that the only ship going back into the Outrim had only cold berths left available. Absolute bullshit. If you wanted that sort of experience you'd just sit in the fridge, but no dice.  Well, when there's no choice there's no choice and if you want get back to Tortuga Outpost in time for the Venganza's next commerce raiding cruise you had to take what was available.

Cold sleep has never sat well with you. It's the whole 'trusting your life to a bunch of uninterested technicians' thing you guess. Out in deep space you can rely on your own expertise or your trust in the rest of the crew but this calmly lying down and being chilled down by a bunch of strangers is uncomfortable to say the least.

With this rattling around your head you took off your clothes and put on the green soft sleep coveralls, your bare feet sticking up under the covers, and shut your eyes. The last thing you remember is them fussing around with your head . . .

A klaxon was blaring nearby, it feels like it is right inside your head. You could feel movement and uncomfortably you also smelled bitter smoke. The surface you are on shudders to a halt against something. You open your eyes and see nothing, the usual result of cold sleep; it takes a few minutes for vision to return.

A computer generated voice cuts in, barely audible over the klaxon.

"Emergency. Emergency. Abandon Ship. Emergency. Emergency"

Your guts tighten.
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:57, Wed 17 Nov 2021.

"God dammit" Dimitri thinks to himself. "I knew these cold berths were a bad idea." He flips his legs over the side of the bench as vision slowly returns to him.

Assessing the situation Dimitri looks around the room searching for his clothes so he can get out of these unflattering green coveralls and tries to see what's causing all these damn alarms.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:26, Wed 17 Nov 2021.

There's a grey haze in front of your eyes, lighter in the upper parts. You suddenly realise how intensely cold you are.

"Emergency. Emergency. Hull failure in drive room. Hull failure in starboard life-pod bay. All passengers and crew are directed to port life-pod bay. Abandon Ship."

That woman's voice is getting on your nerves. You note she never has anything positive to say.

You step off the surface, you assume it's a bench or something, and for a sickening moment you realise you didn't know how far up you were. The floor a brief moment later breaks your fall and you think it also broke your left little finger. Pain shoots up into your armpit from the damaged digit.

Groping about you come up against something soft and wet. Instantly you realise it's a corpse, wearing the same coveralls you are. That amount of blood intimates that something came here and let it the blood out of the unfortunate individual owing to the fact there's still pressure in the compartment and anything coming through the hull would have left you in vacuum.

Your vision starts to clear, right on schedule. You can only see vague shapes as you crouch there, myopically blinking and holding your left hand under your right armpit with your teeth chattering. You seem to be in a long, narrow compartment with random lighting overhead and along the floor as if some of the lighting panels are damaged. The smell of smoke is strong and tastes of chemicals. The floor is a grate and not a solid panel. Your shipboard knowledge lets you know this means you're not in a passenger area. Normally cold berth passengers never even see the areas they travel in, they get chilled down before entering the ship and come on board essentially as cargo. That doesn't help you any at the moment.

(Make a Recon roll. You still have poor vision which is going to make the next bit 'interesting')

Rubbing his eyes hoping to speed up the vision restoration process, Dimitri tries to take stock of the situation he's in. Feeling his way along the bench to what he hopes is an exit, his finger throbbing and still no sign of the clothes he came in with, he remains alert as his senses slowly get back to normal.

Dimitry Spitnatz rolled 6 using 2d6+1+2.  Recon Check

Your vision has cleared to the point where you can make out objects fairly well but not fine details like text on a sign or similar. Suddenly you hear a door cycling very close to you. Looking around you see the light go green beside the pressure almost next to you signalling that it is opening. The hallway is not as long as you thought, the other end of the room is quite nearby and appears to have some sort of hatch in it . . .

Not knowing the nature of the current emergency, only that there is one Dimitri falls back on his lifelong instincts in these kind of situations. The kind of instincts that enabled him to run his own ship in the conglomerate. Don't give your position away, observe, and strategise. Noticing the hatch at the end of the hallway, he starts making his way towards it at the best pace he can while still struggling to fully see.

"Wont do yourself any favours getting knocked out on a beam you don't see." he thinks to himself.

Feeling the cold deck under him, the grates digging into his bare feet, Dimitri hopes that he finds some clothing a bit more suited to skulking around a beat up ship. "Not going to be any good in a fight if I cant even stand properly." he thinks, but the first order of business is to find somewhere safe, somewhere he can take stock of the situation, preferably with a terminal. He looks up again focusing on the hatch he's making his way towards.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:39, Thu 18 Nov 2021.

The hatch is robust and massive, even more so than the usual pressure door. Swinging it open you hope it hasn't alerted anyone on the bridge. beyond is a cramped area; an odd dual barbette containing what looks like dual sandcasters covering a wide gunnery arc. Each gun is to the side of you separated by its own heavy hatch.

In front of you is a ladder heading up to a heavy hatch in the ceiling. The whole place is industrial grey metal and plastic, massive bulkheads and embedded control panels and ducting and piping. Each sandcaster has a magazine shaft heading off into the dark recesses of the ship that it might be possible to squirm down.
You don't remember ever seeing this setup on any ship you've been on, if this even is a ship. It might be some type of base.

Dimitri stands taking stock of his options, into a dark cramped space which might not even lead anywhere or through the hatch with god knows what behind it or monitoring. The idea of spending his last days stuck in a small cramped space appeals a lot less than being able to fight his way out of whatever he comes across. With the decision made he strides over to the ladder and starts climbing, reaching the hatch his fingers find the release for the lock and gives it a pull.

Carefully opening the hatch, you lift it up and look past the coming. The coming, a heavy lip around most of the hatch to stop people tripping over it, is taller than the actual hatch and has lights embedded inside it that flood the area you are in with a harsh glare,.

The first thing you see are bodies, lots of bodies.

They don't appear to be armed, in fact quite a few had their hands bound. Sickeningly, it's not just adult males out there. While taking that in you realise you can also see four sets of boots from under the rim of the hatch.

"I, I'm not too sure about this . . " says the first voice.
"About what?" Says another.
"What do you fucking think! They shot, they shot kids . . "
"Not 'kids', they were fucking 'witnesses' you pussy. Are you going soft on us?" Says another.
"No, uh, no. It's just, I've never . . . I don't know." Says the first. He sounds young.
"Absolutely right you fucker, you don't know. Now get back to your post or the boss will hear about your sudden attack of a conscience."
"Yes, yes, I didn't mean . . . never mind, I'll get back to it." Says the first one again.

One set of boots walks way, giving the horrific pile of corpses a wide berth.

The second voice says "that guy's going to be trouble, I can bet he'll blurt all this out at Tortuga Outpost and we'll be in the shit."
"Don't worry about him and those other jerks" says the third voice. "There's too many shares as it is, we'll be sorting that out on the trip home, then it's off to Torquemada Station and we'll spit the loot."
They laugh and the last says "right, do another sweep. Shoot anything that moves, the ones we want to keep have already been sorted. Keep a look out for anyone wanting to play hero."

They turn on tactical lights on their weapons and start to sweep the area.

You know of Torquemada Station, it's aptly named. It's the main base of the Black Flag pirates, freebooters who know no moral limits or restraint. They came off worst in The Second Pirate War and no one you know has ever been to their base.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:24, Fri 19 Nov 2021.

"Shit" Dimi mutters to himself "Fucking pirates."

he heard mention of Torquemada Station, that surely meant the Black Flags. Even pirates thought of these guys as scum. no code amongst them, no respect, just brutality and mayhem wherever they go. It certainly made his job simpler, no tears will be shed if any of these "Mudaks" didn't return. And hurting kids, there's things you didn't do. Threatened them yeah, tell their parents what you would do to them if they don't give up their possessions, but you never touch them. Not on his ship anyway.

To many of them to take on his own at the moment, stuck in these shitty coveralls. Need a place to plan and get a lie of the land. A security office would be ideal, get a deck plan of the ship and access to cameras and whatever other systems haven't been shut down. possibly the captains room, there's always equipment in there to monitor the ship. Unfortunately the captains room is normally near the bridge, probably swarming with pirates.

What I need is a distraction something to draw them away. Dimi slips out of the hatchway and into the shadows while the area is clear and sees about finding something to cause a distraction.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:22, Fri 19 Nov 2021.

Back down in the dim accessway you see your options here are limited. off to each side are the sandcasters, big rail-guns that shoot canisters of finely tuned reflective 'sand', actually 50mm gravel, to absorb laser energy. Of course, these things are dangerous weapons as you know all too well.
Often carried by commercial ships as 'non-weapons' a boarding crew on the hull being hit by a sandcaster load are in effect being hammered by a 460mm shotgun blast and would be torn to bits, you've seen it with your own eyes. As such these things are usually sited where they just happen to cover external hatches boarding parties might like to use.

They are fed by a magazine conveyor that grasps the end of each huge cartridge and feeds them through a chute from a magazine somewhere.

There's the door back to cold berths, that door was opening but you have no idea if anyone's still in there.

It should be possible to get outside onto the pressure hull through the turret bays. This is not only risky in that you don't have a pressure suit but also in that the seals aren't designed for this. It will irrevocably depressurise this area until repairs are made.

Glancing about you see that by the green lights on the control panels all the hatches are unlocked. Odd. This isn't the usual practice on a ship, you don't want someone coming down and fooling around with systems they shouldn't have access to.

(refer to the map for more detail)

Looking at his options it seems the only way is back through the cold berth bay. Dimi could go through the magazine racks but it will be a cold day in hell before he will consider crawling through that small space, flashes of being trapped unable to move flow through his head even just looking at the small entry way.

Working his way around the small hatch area he currently stands Dimi tries to extinguishes as many lights as he can in the area. Making this room darker than the cold berth room should help if anyone is still standing in the other room. Crouching low next to the door he hits the switch opening up back to the cold berth room, watching in a combat stance his body set low for any movement, arms forward in a neutral position defending his center line as the door slides open with a hiss.

A shudder runs through the floor grates and the pipes groan and grind.

Emergency. Depressurisation in Section C7. Damage control teams to C7. Abandon ship. Emergency.

There she was, at it again. Fat chance any damage control teams were going to turn up you think. It makes you wonder why there's ongoing depressurisation though, it sounded like the fighting was over. Is the ship, station or whatever breaking up?

You crack the panel on its tracks and slide it up, looking back into the cold berth area. Damn, people there.

Two guys in combat armour holding assault rifles are talking to another guy. This individual isn't wearing any armour and seems unarmed, instead he has standard shipboard coveralls, ankle boots and work gloves. He has a light safety helmet with a visor.

"What the fuck was that?!" Say one of the armoured guys.
The guy with the overalls steadies himself against a berth and says "looks like the hull went out in C7".
"No shit Sherlock" says the other, "but fucking why?"
One of the armoured guys goes to the door and looks out but he blocks your view of what's beyond.
"Why are we even down here?" Says the remaining guard.
"Simple," replies mister coveralls wearily. "I'm gonna hard-chill these fuckers in the berths. Then when we get into space the med-techs will break them down into body parts so we can sell them".
"Shit" says the guard who hasn't spoken yet. "We shouldn't have shot those arseholes in the cargo bay, I didn't know there was money in them."
"Nah, they put up too much of a fuss going into the berths. We'll just make do with these. I'll just download the manifest on the berths to see who they are in case there's any medical problems. Those ones go straight into the trash."

Another shudder runs through the ship.

The guy in the coveralls makes a decision. "You two guys see what the fuck is going on and come back, I'll get this done. I don't like this."

The two armoured troops leave and shut the door behind them while the tech turns his attention to the cold berth console.

Dimitri seeing his opening cracks the door as silently as he can. Sticking to the techs blindspots he moves across the room towards the back of raising arms to apply a chokehold to knock him out.

Dimitry Spitnatz rolled 7 using 2d6+1+2.  Stealth
Dimitry Spitnatz rolled 7 using 2d6+1+2.  Melee

You slide through the hatch and rest your knee on the coping as he turns to the console, his face illuminated by the screen. One soft step brings you up behind him and your wiry firearm goes around his throat.

He stiffens and tries vainly to cry out, his arms scrabble at your forearm but you simply kick his right leg out from under him and his full weight goes onto your arm. Suddenly he starts thrashing and soon after he goes limp. From experience you know it'd be almost impossible to fake that.

Lowering him to the deck you look about but no one has noticed, not surprising considering the heavy doors down here.

"No one heard, great" Dimitri thinks to himself as a lift and twist of the neck makes sure he's not waking up again. "Better than he deserved.".

Dimi pats him down quickly and starts stripping him. "Finally some proper clothes" as he slips on the boots to complete the outfit. Slapping his transit coveralls on him, Dimitri slips him into the pod he vacated and slaps it closed.

With no immediate threat he picks up the datapad the tech was using and checks out the other pods and surrounding area in the room. What other fools almost got sold as parts?

ACTIONS
Change clothes
Put body in empty pod
Check room
Check pods

Checking the console you see that the other 'green light pods', three of them, have two males and a female in them. They vary in ages; Jean-Claude Harris is 15, Carter Al-Barlan is 35 and Susan Hollstetter is 85. You guess Susan would have been killed outright.

Putting on the guy's clothes you wish he'd washed a bit more frequently but the clothes fit you better than they fitted him. The lightweight helmet will really only stop a billy club but it has a helmet-light on one side, integral headset and a flip-down clear visor. You suspect it would darken for welding. He has a a PDA/phone¹ and nearby there's what seems to be a mechanic's toolkit and a hefty crowbar. The coveralls seem a bit stiff, they seem to have light armouring, probably for work in hazardous environments².

You finish this up and switch your attention to the door. Those two arseholes said they were coming back after they'd checked the problem. The problem with this door is it's a proper pressure door and not a hatch, if you open it then it will open all the way. Anyway, it can't be helped. You open the door and step to one side and then take a peek around. Just a hallway . . .

¹ TL10 comm (50km) it links to the helmet headset.
² Armour Value 3
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:14, Mon 22 Nov 2021.

Dimitri leans forward looking each way in the hallway, two doors, no idea what's behind them. Only option is to just go for it. Calming himself he turns to door immediately to his left and opens it, stepping in quickly hoping to catch anyone in there by surprise.

You walk out into a large circulation space, the smell of smoke is strong here. It's both the heavy burnt chemical smell from before and the firecracker stench of weapon propellant.

It appears there was fighting here, bullet marks and laser blasts pock the bulkheads, plastic cartridge cases are scattered about and there's heavy blood trails where it looks like bodies were dragged away through the heavy pressure door just to the north of the one you came through.

This place has the heavy utilitarians of the other crew access areas you have been through. From the low overhead ceiling signs point to various stations; sickbay and medic to your left and launch crew and galley to your right. One the massive double doors you can see "Engineering" stencilled.

A guy is sitting in the crew rest area and is sponging blood of his coveralls, he's dressed much like you. He looks up and smiles as you walk in and then a quizzical look appears on his face.

Seeing the man lookup at him, Dimitri uses the momentum he gained bursting through the door to advance quickly on the man. Vaulting the couch he sends the crowbar sharply out aiming for his throat, trying to prevent him getting of an alert.

Tactics - 12
Details:[2d6+1+2 # (4 5)]

Melee Attack - 9
Details:[2d6+1+2 #  (4 2)]

Damage - 12
Details:[2d6+1 #  (5 6)]
This message was last edited by the player at 10:26, Mon 22 Nov 2021.

The man flinches and the crowbar smacks him right on the ear almost knocking him right off the couch. However though blood is pouring out of a jagged gash on the side of his head he looks like he's groggily trying to retain his feet. He claps his hand to his smashed skull and moans.

With a growl Dimitri slashes down with the crowbar again at the bleeding head trying to finish him off.

Tactics - 11
Details:[2d6+1+2 #  (3 5)]

Attack - 11
Details:[2d6+1+2 #  (3 5)]

Damage - 10
Details:[2d6+1 #  (4 5)]

The man is only just off the deck as the crowbar catches him under the jaw in a savage undercut. His face caves in and his head twists around at an unnatural angle. The force of the blow bodily picks him up and sprawls his lifeless body across the table, scattering a plastic drink. The corpse convulsively twitches a few times and then lies still.

You stand there, scanning the area. There's no sign of anyone noticing the assault.

You realise you were lucky, this guy has an autopistol in a shoulder holster, he could have stood off and pumped you full of rounds as you tried to get to him. You pull it out and check the clip, it's fully loaded and there's another magazine in the matching pouch on the shoulder rig. Looking it over you see it's a Tak-Edge G71 10mm, a good pistol. Otherwise he's equipped pretty much like your last victim except he has a wickedly-long boot-knife strapped to his calf and has no tool kit or crowbar.

Stripping down the body, Dimitri takes the shoulder holster with gun and and slips it on himself. Giving it a couple of test draws he makes sure it slides in and out smoothly. The clip slips easily into his pocket and the knife attaches firmly to his calf. This definitely feels a lot better now.

Looking back down the hallway he sees the area marked "Sickbay and Medic" next to the door he came in through and starts dragging the body down towards it, doing his best to leave no trail.

When he gets to the door he lays the body down and cracks the door slightly to get a look in.

The caved-in skull of the corpse does leak some, but due to the gore splattered all over the ship you think it's highly unlikely anyone would pick what you've done.

Inside the med-bay is the white interior your expect. There's blood here and there and a lot of medical wrappers and discarded trauma tools on the deck and surfaces littering the place, it looks like an abandoned first aid station in a war zone. One of the lights flickers, creating a strange tension. You drag the body in and sash it out of the way.

Using his novice combat medic knowledge, Dimitri grabs anything that might be useful in his current mission of getting off this whatever it is. Sliding slightly on the blood he thinks to himself "is there any room on this ship that hasn't been turned into an abattoir". Making sure the door is shut behind him he moves back into the common area and past the seating area.

"Check all the corners, check all the rooms". His days back on the boarding parties comes back to him. "It's always worth the extra time to make sure no one has a knife in your back".

He slips the door open a little at the end of the corridor and peeks in.

The doors at the other end of the corridor are labelled "Crew Galley" and "Launch Crew". The galley is as you'd expect it but a few abandoned meals are on the bench. The "launch crew" room is a little cabin for two personnel showing similar disarray.

You follow the bloody footprints and drag trail to the pressure door. You haven't seen a way to change decks since you left the sandcaster barbette. Opening the door you see a mirror corridor to the one near the cold berths and another cold berth room. A quick peek in shows the same nine cold berths and the hatch which you assume goes to another sandcaster barbette. All the cold berths show greenlights.

Seems quiet down this end of what he can only assume is the ship he booked passage on. Remembering the engineering signage behind him, he heads back that way to the double pressure doors. "There's a good chance to find a terminal or some form of ship status information in there" he thinks to himself. His experience working with ships should hopefully let him find some access.

standing to one side Dimitri draws the pistol and holds it at the ready, no idea what could be in the room beyond. He flicks the release switch to open the door into engineering and slips in quietly hoping any noise from the machinery will mask his entry.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:36, Tue 23 Nov 2021.

The glowing warning lights around the doors highlight the flashing waring signs.

"Danger. Zero Pressure Beyond This Point. Proceed To Damage Control Stations. Danger"

Right on queue that computer-woman says her bit.

"Emergency. Emergency. Critical Hull Failure. Emergency. Emergency. Damage Control to Sector C7. Emergency. Emergency."

"Well in that case I guess im not going to engineering" he mutters to himself. "I really should give her a name." he pauses thinking. "Amber, the computer lady". he decides on a smile coming across his face thinking about the woman he met on a beach a long time ago. Shortly before she held him at gunpoint and robbed him blind, but still fun times.

"Ok Amber. Where on this damn ship isn't broken." he says up into the air before moving back into the corridor he was just examining. Moving to the door at the end he readies his weapon and opens the hatch.

As you move up to the hatch you see it's a heavy pressure door. Opening it you see a wide area that looks like a heavy cargo distribution area. Recessed lights, massive grey walls and chipped red and black hazard lights are on the walls and floors.

The smoke isn't as bad in here but the emergency klaxons are louder. Over the sirens you hear laughter.

Two men, one with an assault rifle and one with a pistol in a shoulder holster are looking through large vision ports on a very heavy pressure door. Across the top and down the sides of the door is stencilled "Launch Bay Pressure Lock". Red lights turn on the door and a lock-cycling warning is sounding.

On the other side of the pressure door terrified people are pounding on the door. A woman holds a child and covers the child's eyes, her face turned up to the ceiling with her eyes screwed shut. The men on your side of the door are laughing and waving at the horrified people trapped in the lock.

"Warning. Warning. Launch Pressure Bay Cycling. Do Not Enter Area"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 12:37, Thu 25 Nov 2021.

Seeing the people screaming Dimitri feels his stomach drop. He's seen the Black Flags do shit like this in the war. No rhyme or reason for it, just pure evil in their hearts. "Why aren't they hitting the airlock override from inside?" he thinks, though could just be the cold panic of the moment and they might not even be crew, probably just some helpless passengers caught up in this slaughter.

Looking at his options he knows these systems, the manual release is no good with that assault rifle next to it and he hadn't seen a terminal since getting out of cold sleep. Only sensible option at this point is to just cut the power, just need to find the right weak spot to do it without being noticed.

Engineer (Power Systems)
# 8
Details:[2d6+1+2 #  (2 3)]

Mechanic (Power Systems) task: Success (just)

Stepping back you try and think over the awful sounds.
You remember a junction bay in the crew lounge, you must have subliminally logged it without really seeing it. It's in the right place for a power routing if there's locks on both side of the launch bay.

Moving swiftly but quietly back the way he came, Dimitri makes his way to the junction he had noticed earlier and pulls out his knife. Slipping the knife in he pries off the access point to get to the innards. Working swiftly he sees about shutting down the power in a safe and controlled way, making sure it can be reconnected again if needed.

Looking in you see there's simply a set of isolators available to you, all neatly labelled. You shut them down . .

Confident he had shut everything down nicely, he slips out his pistol and holds it carefully at his side, hopefully they don't come down this way. confident the airlock had stopped cycling he knew he had a bit of time, stepping to the side of the door inside the launch crew room he leaves it slightly ajar so he can see the corridor and the door leading to the cargo hold. giving it a couple of minutes he waits to see if either of the pirates come to investigate.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:01, Fri 26 Nov 2021.

With the door almost slid shut, your boot holding it just ajar, you see both men warily come into the area. The assault rifle guy has his weapon to his shoulder but pointed down and the pistol guy holds his weapon point straight down with his finger on the trigger guard. They look around carefully.

"Something's not fucking right" says the guy with the rifle. "Check the panel, I'm going to look around".

The other guy nods and looks about before his eyes light on the panel for the airlock. He starts to walk over to it.

The other guy says "wait a minute, what's that?" He brings his rifle up and warily starts to walk to the medical bay.

The one with the autopistol opens the panel and mutters "I thought so, someone's been screwing with this".

Knowing that he cant let them get the power running again, Dimitri raises his pistol and takes aim at the pirate looking into the panel. Making sure to keep the door between himself and any return fire he slowly squeezes the trigger timing it with the tannoy announcements to try mask the sound.

Pistol + Dex+ Aiming
# 12
Details:[2d6+2+2+1 #  (4 3)]
This message was last edited by the player at 07:22, Sat 27 Nov 2021.

The pistol roars in the tight confines and the muzzle flash is startlingly bright. As you're recovering from the recoil you see a huge spray of blood cover the bulkhead, no one could live through that.

Sprinting out of the room, Dimitri drops to one knee and slides up to the sofa, the slick blood coating his knee and thigh from the slide. Keeping his gun out, his side pressed against the couch he scans the room for the other guard looking to make a bead on him.

The pirate spins in place and you here as "click" a he changes the fire setting on his weapon. He goes into a firing stance and brings his weapon up to bear, a ruby red laser pointer shining through the smoke.

You pop up over the couch and squeeze off a shot, the bullet taking him high in the left side of the chest in the armour. Shock and pain registers on his face as the round penetrates the armour. He shouts at you in fury and a huge star shaped muzzle flash erupts as he hammers a burst at you. The couch is torn to pieces as the rounds slice through them and a round spears into your side. The sides of your vision greys and pain balloons through your body.

7hp damage after armour, cover and dodging

Dimitri lets out a grunt, pain exploding in his side. he reaches down and feel the wet sticky patch of blood. No time to think about that now, need to get rid of this guy. gathering his strength he takes aim again at the soldier and lets rip with the pistol again trying to end this fight quickly.

The second bullet hits the man low on the abdomen. His leg buckles under him and he falls to the deck, twisting in pain.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:03, Sat 04 Dec 2021.

Seeing him and hearing the grunt Dimitri sees his opportunity, gritting his teeth he quickly moves forward and attempts to pin the pirates gun arm down while putting a point blank shot through his eye socket.

There's silence in the room. You pant with exertion and pain, the stink of weapon discharge strong your nostrils.

"Fuck my side hurts" wincing slightly at the pain. "Hopefully went clean through". Dimitri starts looking over the now dead pirate in front of him and headless corpse over by the panel. The weapon that did so much damage to himself should definately come in handy.

Having grabbed what he needs, Dimitri slowly walks back to the infirmary to find something to patch himself up.

You have to flip the body over to get the webbing off it. The guy has two double ammo pouches, one of which is full and one of which has only an empty magazine in it. You look over the assault rifle, it's the ubiquitous T-540 with a holo sight and a laser spot on the rails. It kind of needs a clean but as they're famous for being dependable you think it'll be okay for the short term.

The other guy had an autopistol as well but it's an angular Viper-9, complete with a suppressor. You know that a suppressor firing that ammunition doesn't really make the weapon all that quiet, it will sound like a loud clap when discharged, but it won't be a deafening shot. He has the same shoulder holster set up the first guy had and you can clip the ammo pouch and holster onto your present one so you'll have a pistol on each side.

Slapping the pistol and holster on his other hip, Dimitri picks up the assault rifle and checks the clip and chamber. "This will do" he thinks to himself.

Patching himself up with dirty quick stitches he checks the blood has stopped. Not quite the freedom of movement he's used to but fine for now. Moving back into rec room and through the corridor he makes his way to the airlock. Knowing he doesn't exactly look like a crewmember anymore, Dimitri moves up to the airlock window and keys the comm. "Ok people I'm gonna get you out of there, I've taken care of the two gaurds, now remain chill and don't give me no shit."

Slapping the airlock release he waits for it to cycle.

The heavy doors part with a blast of steam. You see inside is a massive bay that is both airlock and light craft hangar, the internal control panels lie near you on your side of the lock.
As the door opens six adults and three children rush out. One of the women throws her arms around you while all thank you in an incoherent rush, finally calming down and looking about fearfully. The various hugs, shoulder thumps and general thanks almost pulls your staples.
Glancing over at the control panel on this side it appears you stopped the outer doors opening with eight seconds to spare.

Not used to being thanked for anything, Dimitri takes it all awkwardly. When the woman finally lets go of him he turns to whoever seems to be in charge and says "I'm still groggy from the sleep. Where are we? We still on the transit ship?".

Everyone talks at once and one of the women calls for quiet.

"We're on the ILK Brunel out of Mertactor. She's a one thousand ton liner. We're not sure where we are, we came out of jump and the crew seemed concerned. There was a lot of activity but they didn't tell us what was going on, only that there'd be a delay. Some of us wondered if we might have misjumped because none of the stewards would tell us how long to dock."

As she's speaking the others have realised they're not out of danger yet and grow subdued, anxiously looking around the area.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:59, Sat 11 Dec 2021.

"Ok everyone hunker down in the low berth room. I'm going to go and find out what's going on here." Dimitri points back towards the way he came as he says this.

Grabbing his Rifle he waits until everyone has moved out of the room and opens the door at the end of the room, slowly peeking through as he continues on into this pirate infested tin can.

As you push open the heavy pressure hatch a dead passenger slumps through the opening. It looks the pistol guy shot her as she tried to get away rather than be jammed into the cargo lock judging from the wounds in her back. She was really young, just out of her teens.

You're in a smoky circulation area, there's two doors ajar leading into a machinery space that looks like it's been searched. To your left is a vacc suit locker, the doors also ajar. They were thorough. You look at the vacc suits, they're a utilitarian suit for both planetary and orbital EVA.

"Great, just what I need" he exclaims to himself after seeing the vacc suits hanging in storage. grabbing the suit he spends a few minutes squeezing into it. Satisfied all the seals are made, he notices the signage above the door next to him "Launch Bay". "It Cant be this easy" he thinks to himself as he pushes the panel to open the door.

It is, of course, not that easy. The hangar is bare and inside every single interior control panel has been removed.

You cast about, checking the doors to make sure no one is peering through the viewing panels.

Odd, there should be a launch in here, it's almost impossible the crew would not have brought one along.

Something catches your eyes; the survival kit lockers are all open and empty.

"Did they abandon ship?" he thinks to himself. "Left the passengers behind to fend for themselves, cowards". Dimitri closes the door again and starts moving back towards the engine room. Sealing the doors to the crew lounge behind him he tries to override the engine room door, being exposed to space is no problem now he has a vacc suit.

Amber decides to give you her views over the vacc suit radio as you interact with the engineering room controls.

"Danger. Danger. Zero compression in Engineering Section due to do total loss of atmosphere. Zero gravity in Engineering Section due to catastrophic hull failure. Do not proceed. Danger. Danger."

You pause for a minute considering whether you want to listen to her negative views. Once again it occurs to you that she never has anything positive to say. Like, she could have mentioned that you're still alive and that's quite an achievement.

While you ruminate on this you look over the control board through the drifting smoke. Because of the failure the interlocks have activated and the normal door console is inoperative, you have to use the disaster control panel with its rotating amber lights. There's a big red handle to pull down on the striped panel saying "Door Override."
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:18, Tue 14 Dec 2021.

"screw it, I've been defrosted, threated with parts harvesting and shot at, not like today could get any worse."

Dimitri checks the seals on his suit one final time and double checks the pressure are definitely closed before he grips the handle and pulls the handle down into the the release position. He stands stands hopefully, waiting for the sound of the mechanicals to release the doors.

The klaxons start to blare and Amber really loses it;
"ALERT! ALERT! Engineering pressure door 0-B override engaged! Aft Launch Facilities Sector depressurising on count of five seconds! Evacuate area immediately! ALERT! ALERT! Four seconds. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second! Depressurisation initiated, ensure all personnel evacuate area immediately! ALERT! ALERT!"

The rotating lights brighten and spin faster as you feel the vents all around trying to pull in as much atmosphere as possible before the doors open. Instinctively you hang onto the console's grab-handles with an urgent intensity. With an ominous crunch the doors open and the room you are in is plunged into darkness lit by only the revolving yellow lights. Loose articles and two corpses sail through the opening and you see dark shapes of machinery, arcing electricity, ragged hull-frames that are only dimly visible and beyond that unblinking stars.

Something big hit this compartment.

Dimitry looks in to the shattered room.

"Well a bit more damage than I was expecting, lets see if there's anything still working in here" he thinks to himself as he takes a tentative step into the room, making sure his boots are making solid contact with the deck.

Dimitri looks around searching for any consoles with a spark of life in them, hopping to find something that will shed a little light on the situation. Deck plans, bridge logs, systems status. Anything would be good right now.

Looking into the cavernous engine room you see what's left of some seriously big drives. The floor plates three metres into the are are first buckled, then twisted and after that floating in tangled messes of sparking metal and plastic. There'll definitely be no gravity once they're even mildly damaged, this being a commercial ship and not something rugged like a scout.

Your breath hisses in the helmet as you turn to survey the damage. At least fifteen metres of hull is gone and deeper in you can see what hit the Brunel. It looks like it was once a launch, it must have been moving at incredible relative speeds to the hull and the entire front end of the small craft is a tangled wreck and spinning clouds of debris. So pf the aft of the vehicle has survived.

Looking over the wreck you realise that there's obviously no way that generator is still running and so the ship is running on batteries. The batteries are dispersed around the ship and so wouldn't be easy for you to manipulate the power supply in any way, it's just not a functionality the ship has. Of course you might be able to write your own program to do so but you have serious time constraints armed with automatic weapons.

Your eyes settle on the wreckage of the launch, it's dark bulk outlined against the hard stars. It's impossible to tell if it came from the Brunel without closer inspection. As you're looking at it you see the smashed remnants of three consoles nearby, impacted by the wreck and the kinetic trauma the ship has taken. They are dark and twisted but serious work might get one working again, it would be difficult as they're in zero gee and pieces of metal and plastic are drifting about.

You cold probably get out onto the hull through the jagged rents of the shifting structure from here. Difficult and dangerous but not impossible.

The decking shifts, if you had atmosphere you'd have heard groans of the structure. This ship is breaking up.

Maybe not all at once but sooner or later she'll be tumbling sections of debris in deep space, lifeless and dark with a cargo of the dead.

Dimitri surveys the wreckage ahead of him, quite a number has been done here. No wonder Amber was advising against entering. Seeing the wrecked terminals and the launch ahead of him, he might be able to get a terminal running between them. Maybe the launch has a terminal still running he can wire to the ships systems. Worth a look anyway.

Dimitri slowly starts plodding along towards the launch, making sure the magnetic seals on boots are securing with each step.

There's metres of vacuum between you and what's left of the launch where it's embedded in the machinery, there's nothing for it but to jump through the maelstrom of debris. You push off and coast across the intervening space, the eerie quiet of just your breathing in the helmet is contrasted with the visual noise of sparking consoles and cables as well as the tumbling scrap hull sections. Once you have to push against a large section of beams and hull that are smeared with bloody marks. You realise you're floating through droplets of blood that smear your visor.

With a clump you land on the launch's aft section and clip a safety carabiner to the door section. There's no power so you let loose the emergency panel and deploy the crank, slowly turning the door open.

As the gap opens about a foot you suddenly see in the flickering, staccato strobe light of the arcing power lines what looks like two heavy metal claws grab either side of the opening door from the inside and start to prise the door further apart.

Moving as quickly as he can, Dimitri unshoulders the rifle. Slowly climbing up over the opening using gravboots and lowering the rifle to be level with the back of the head of whatever comes out.

Clomping back on the shattered hull and readying your gun at a crazy angle to the rest of the ship you stare as the thing wrenches open the metal doors with unbelievable force, it normally would take a serious hydraulic "jaws of life" to do half that much energy. The sporadic flashes of light illuminate a heavy industrial shape like a malformed or ludicrously-built cargo bot haul itself outside and clamp its oversized clawed feet onto the hull, leaving visible gouges. It swivels it's head at you and with horror you see that it's yellow and black-striped bulk is blotched all over with bloodstains.

"What the fuck!" Dimitri exclaims at the sight of this blood stained bot.

Not waiting around to see what's gonna happen next his instincts kick in. His hand quickly slipping down he releases the safety clip and gun still pointing at the boys heads he releases his boots from deck. Hoping the opposing force from the gun pushes him back he holds down the Trigger sending a burst into the bot.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:17, Sat 01 Jan 2022.

The assault rifle hammers in your gloved hands and two rounds slam into the metallic monstrosity. You sail off the hull in a spin and the suit's light intensifiers struggle with the erratic flight.
You can't see if you've damaged it but before you lose visual with it you see it snaps its head around towards you.

Cranking your head around inside the helmet you see the tangled wreck of the hull coming up at you at an eleven o'clock relation to the deck. Spreading your boots you clump onto the hull narrowly missing some power conduits that are writhing under some sort of tension from inside the hull.

Snapping your head back around you look down at the thing, it's like nothing you've ever seen before. Crouching on the launch's hull you can see it is a roughly humanoid robot or drone but it has an exaggerated chassis seemingly designed to intimidate and create fear by design and in the shifting, stuttering light it's working well. Roughly half again as large as you it is a huge hunched shape of black and yellow stripes, all smooth and segmented. It snaps its head from side to side in a sort of erratic manner, maybe your bullets did some damage, before launching itself across the gap towards you.

Knowing a bit about power systems from his engineering days, Dimitri reaches down and grabs a shielded part of the loose cable. Careful to keep it away from contacting anything it shouldn't he waits in a crouch for the metal monstrosity to reach him.

The huge bot does a slow roll as it leaps towards you and then slams into the hull, almost shaking you loose. Instantly it swipes what can only be called claws at you, the flickering movement barely seen in the shifting light.

You duck under the first swipe and the claws smash into the hull and strike sparks, but the second attack comes from below and blind-sides you. The long blades slide through your suit and you gasp in pain as the ram into your torso. The suit's holo-display suddenly displays red bars warning of depressurisation.

With atmosphere venting from the long rips in your pressure suit you desperately jam the sparking cables into the side of the robot. Arcs of electricity erupt around it and it swings back but stops, seemingly realising the cables are not effecting it like both you and expect they would. gasping against the pain you jam the cables again into its armpit and this time the machine does shudder. You see the diodes on its skull flicker and dim.

And then flicker on again, but dimly. Deep inside it the circuit breakers close and then open. It's going through its power-up process.

"OK enough of this" Dimitri thinks to himself picking himself up from the blow. Gathering what speed he can he moves back towards the pressure doors that he entered the room through, hoping that the panel has enough juice to seal those doors again. grabbing hand over hand and letting him glide where he can, he drags himself closer.