Preparing for Conquest: A Shadow in Space

[Halik Falkosi]

On the edge of the Demetres sector, nearest to where the Mandalorians had engaged in a few border wars with the Sith, a disturbance had been noted. Scans had picked up the presence of a Sith warship just hanging in space. It had minor damage to its exterior but aside from that it looked to be in good condition. That is save for the fact that its entire power system was dead. It was just a floating heap of metal. Life scans were not conclusive. Some areas seemed to be naturally shielded against scans, so those higher in command were not sure if things were alive or dead.

What was before them seemed like an opportunity. Seldom could one capture an enemy vessel so easily, assuming it was simply malfunctioning. Also, the information that could be gained by coming into possession of it was simply too much to pass up. However, the situation felt something like a trap. No open conflicts had really occurred within the last year and the ship had only just recently been spotted. Albeit, it was no where near a system so it theoretically could have been there for quite some time, however it really just did not seem likely. The Mandalorians were fairly thorough in making sure that their space was heavily monitored and protected.

So hanging in the middle of space was a very dead Sith warship. Not too far opposite to it was a Mandalorian cruiser. This was the party tasked with looking into this derelict warship. From it were a few small shuttles moved towards the Sith vessel. A few clasped onto various points of the hull and cut their way in. Another made its way directly into the hanger of the warship. Halik was on board this shuttle. Ideas flew through his mind as to what they would find on the ship. Would it simply be abandoned, the crew having vacated as much of it as possible on transports? Or could it be filled with the dead? If it was a trap how would it be lain? All the mysteries that came with the mission before him just sparked more questions. He would only know the answers by exploring this vast warship.

(( Feel free to throw all sorts of obstacles into this thread as it goes. I'm not the kind of guy that starts the thread and wants to lead everyone by the nose into every encounter. Unless that is the specific role that I'm supposed to be filling then that really isn't the kind of thing I like to do. However, I'd prefer it if a Sith fleet didn't appear out of no where lol. ))

 

[Darth Metus]

In the wake of the Darkness prompted by the catastrophic Gulag Virus, the galaxy had slowly moved to a period of great transition. All across the galaxy, factions and regimes sprang forth from the chaos, each attempting to seize supreme power over the known universe and reign as sovereign. As time moved ever forward, cold wars between neighboring systems became common place; arms races and border disputes broke out nearly annually all across the galaxy. Mandalorian space was no exception, and their opponent was none other than the Sith Empire.

Over this period of tension between the Sith and the Mandalorians, an interesting development made its way to the warrior faction's high command. Apparently, there was a warship of Imperial origin floating about, dead in the water. Although this vessel could very well have been put there as a trap by the Sith Empire, the potential advantages of capturing the warship greatly outweighed the potential risks. And so, a unit was dispatched in order to investigate the derelict warship. Among these were Isley Verd, an initiate of the warrior faction.

He and his trusty, mechanical companion Kyr'ad had been sent out from the Mandalorian cruiser on a shuttle all their own, which promptly latched onto the surface of the warship and began the automated process of cutting an opening for the duo to enter. Isley was nearly besides himself with excitement, as this was a perfect opportunity for him to continue to prove himself in the eyes of, not only Halik, but a large number of his Mandalorian brothers and sisters. Grinning from ear to ear from behind his helmet, he was the first of the pair to enter into the derelict vessel, landing within what seemed to be the sick bay with a soft 'thud'.

"Alpha team," said Isley, opening a line of communication with Halik, "This is Bravo. We've entered into what seems to be a medical facility. We'll proceed to investigate and head towards the bridge."

As he spoke, Kyr'ad made its entrance into the warship, landing with a heavier thud that showered the floor with sparks. Its single, crimson sensor swept across the room, sending data to Isley's HUD. The life scans came up negative, there was no power flowing to this portion of the ship, and there was no movement. Despite this, Isley unsheathed one of his trademark daggers from his utility belt and held it as the ready as he strode about, poking around the sick bay. There was nothing of unusual quality here, just standard medical supplies stockpiled into a series of cabinets and three pods situated in the center of the space. Isley simply assumed that they were full body scanners of some sort, but stepped over to take a closer look inside one. Its contents were heavily obscured by a mass of ice that had accumulated upon its surface from the chill of space, so Isley set about battering some away so that he could peer inside....

"What the hell is THAT?!" He nearly screeched across all the channels. Within the pod was the most grotesque looking thing he had ever seen. It had appeared to have once been a human, or at least near-human, but was horrifically mutated and covered with slime and scales. Its face was horrifically deformed, with several eyes populating its brow. It had appeared that the Sith were...experimenting...with some sort of mutagen, and that this poor soul was an unfortunate recipient of the experimentation. "All teams, check filters...there's some sort of mutated thing down here in the sick bay. Sending images now..."

 

[Lance of Dreams]

Hutuun'Kyramud was not pleased today. Of all the Mandalorians to send into space to poke at some floating junk that might belong to the enemy, why in their right minds would they send an un-tech savy Tusken to do it? Kyr supposed that it might have something to do with usual grouping, including Halik, Isley, and Zaf. It seemed that where they went the Tusken followed, with few exceptions. The young Mando in him could not possibly think that blasting off into space was going to bring him any closer to being blooded. Regardless however Kyr upheld his Mando belief and faithfully followed Mandalore. There were several Mandalorians trying to help Kyr get into a pressurized suit, but it was evident that Kyr would simply not have it, he would not remove his armor for anyone. They eventually found a solution to the problem after quite some time, and still the Tusken was quite unpleased. He was one of the last to leave the ship, and enter the floating tomb that came from the empire. He was quite distraught when he found that their was another 'person' who boasted the name Kyr, but he kept his mouth shut. Afterall, more than two people can hold the same nickname.

Kyr very nearly knocked out a fellow Mando on accident when Isley screeched his findings into Kyr's, and apparently everyone else's, ears. The Tusken preceded to apologize to his almost-victim, however. The grotesque thing obstructing his view was well... grotesque. Then Isley told everyone to check their filters for something.

"Filter?" His deep voice did its best to embody inquiry. He was familiar with his Tusken apparatus that filtered moisture in the air into water to hydrate him, but he failed to understand how this would need to be checked. A fellow Mando (probably the one he nearly assaulted) came up to him though and helped him despite Kyr's reluctance. Kyr sighed deeply, he felt like a child. He hoped that soon there would be something to kill, then he could be redeemed of this embarrassment. Perhaps he would get his wish.

 

[Zef Halo]

Zef Halo was not really enthusiased by the idea of journeying into a big dead space vessel. Although it was like a gold mine for the Mandalorian plans of conquest Zef was not a bit motivated of venturing forth in a powerless dark warship not only did it smell as a Sith trap from parsecs away but it was creepy. The former smuggler remembered a job contract the Hutts were offering a few years ago that was about bringing some spice goods from a dead starship in space. The fellows that took the job were never heard of again and that made Zef bones chill. Of course it could've been that the adventurers were creeped out and fled into in a barren world so they would hide from the Hutt's wrath. The current situation also reminded him of an old acquintance of his in the illegal business, although that acquintance was not a solo smuggler like Zef but a weird heavy spice addicted pirate who ventured forth to random coordinates along with the Wild Space and Unknown Regions looking for such dead ships or ghost settlements on force forgotten worlds.
Just thinking of what people he knew Zef sighed. He was a bit troubled also that so bravely the Mandalorians were boarding a ship that seemed as the most obvious trap in the galaxy. Not only were they a sole warship but Zef did not here of any eventual reinforcements for this operation. It sounded suicidal. Automatic along with thorough manual scans had scanned negative on lifeforms or any power or heat emitted in the warship. Of course that could quickly change.
On of the few other boarding parties were one of the very few mandalorians he knew the name of and socialized with due to been in a few operations as a team. Those were the Mandalorians - Halik Falkosi, Isley Verd and Hutuun'Kyramud. The first a toughened yet quite mysterious Mandalorian Bloodied, the second an enthusiastic Mandalorian of a mandalorian lineage wanting to prove himself, the third another Initiate as Isley and Zef who despised technological things, longed for combat, and was motivated to prove himself that he was a true Mandalorian. Zef was quite the contrast to those people.
The former smuggler was on the boarding party that had just cut it's way into the engine room. Jumping with a loud thud on the metalplated floor while looking around with his nightvision. Everything was so...dead. The weirdest thing of all this that the ship was not in an emergency state where it would generate enough power to keep the life support system going along with the stereotypical red lights on important corridors, a few decks and the bridge. Since there was no power at all, not even reserve emergency power there was also no life support system which meant they did not have all the time in the galaxy on this ship, for some reason though the artificial gravity generator was working well as they were having no problems walking around as if on walking on Coruscant.

"What the hell is THAT?!" Isley's voice was heard all over the channel yelling as if he had seen a ghost. Zef's heart beated twice in a moment and almost pulled the trigger. He saw his fellow team also startle and tighthen their grips on their weapons. "All teams, check filters...there's some sort of mutated thing down here in the sick bay. Sending images now..."
Zef was a bit annoyed by Isley's sudden surprise to something...What the-?
The scoundrel was about to have Isley's reaction to the images he had received on his HUD, he also noticed some of his squadmates also feeling disgust to the bloodied mess that was on their HUD. Zef did not keep the dead thing on his HUD for long and focused on his surroundings and situation.
"Filter?" An enquiry was made through the main channel by none other but the technologyphobic Kyr but Zef mistook it for a surprise which was also Zef's reaction.
"Filter??" The former smuggler's voice ran through the main channel with an annoyed tone. "Are you out of your wits? The whole life support system is down! There's no oxygen! We haven't got a year to stay on this fierfek vessel." He grunted over the main channel and continued. "And I hate to break it for you, tin heads but the artificial gravity generator is working." His tone still had leads of annoyance but continued with a calmer but slightly sarcastic tone. "Something's supplying the generator with power. Mandalore's sensors seem quite unadvanced. " He let a snicker fill the main channel and continued once again. "I wouldn't be surprised if we found some sections of the ship being supplied with emergency power. About the engine room though we've got no signs of any power at all." Zef paused a bit as the whole situation as he was explaining it began creeping him out, the former smuggler sighed with a bit of worry and continued although his long already speech might have been annoying the bloodied that was leading the squad Zef was in, the scoundrel couldn't care less. "It'd be good if someone heads to the bridge and secures it but I doubt we could start the power there. Some of us needs to head to the reactor room and turn the power on. Short-circuit or however you want. It'd be crucial to power the life-support system and the freaking lights in this bloody place." Zef hated the dark and his last statement proved it. He absolutely despised the dark and he wanted this place lit like a mid-day on Mos Eisley. The former smuggler questioned himself and how he had spread advices for so long that even sounded close to orders, Zef blamed that on the growing fear of this creepy place in his guts.

 

[Polkov Kravinof]

"It's times like this I miss wild jungles and treacherous tundras. Much better than Sith derelict, aye comrades?" grumbled Polkov, the Mandalorian Bear as he thundered down the boarding ramp of the shuttle alongside his Mandalorian brothers, or as he put it, his Comrades. Polkov hated confined spaces, especially ones on starships such as this one. He preferred the open air and space of fields and forests, and just nature in general, but duty called upon the Bear, and he was not one to back down or refuse his duty, no matter what the situation. A burst of static followed by a plethora of messages flooded both Polkov's audio and visual sensors as his onboard HUD processed the information, and with just a few simple words Polkov activated his helmet's comm-link and replied back. "What are you seeing comrades?" But before he could even finish his entire sentence, the image pics of what the one known as Isley flooded his HUD and with a snarl of disgust he removed the images from his sight and barked into the comm, "What kind of madmen are these Imperials? I say we destroy this vessel before we stumble upon any more nightmares, is my honest opinion..." He said sternly, obviously displeased about this whole ordeal, and not very keen on staying here any longer.

He doubled-checked the rifle slung over his shoulder and waded a bit farther into the hangerbay until something caught his eye near the far corner. He walked over to a pile of crates, each one marked with a blue and green symbol of a multi-headed serpent, or a hydra as many civilizations had come to call such a creature. Polkov had no idea what these symbols meant or what they forshadowed, but perhaps one of his brothers knew. "I found something comrades... does any of you recognize this symbol here?" He took pics with his helm's optics, and forwarded them to the other Mandalorians, hoping one of them would have some answer for whatever this meant.

 

[Halik Falkosi]

Halik tried to keep mostly to himself. A lot of confusion was going through the comm systems as the different teams began exploring the ship. Images popped up at the corner of his HUD showing him some of the important things that were being found. Lists were naturally being made of the important information. Clearly disfigured creatures were being found within crates. Polkov has noticed that some kind of symbol, which was entirely foreign to him, was marking some crates. Evidently some power was being maintained throughout the ship to enable the internal gravity because he had no need for the clamps in his armor. Interesting and more interesting.

He scanned the hanger, the light from his helmet illuminating path his eyes traced, and found it strangely barren. Some TIEs were hanging from some of their docks but no shuttles were present save for one on the entire deck, aside from his own. Something was off about it. The way it was positioned on the deck was not the way he expected it normally would be if it was just supposed to be docked. It felt crooked. He approached it quietly and considered it. His helmet's scans couldn't penetrate it. This bugged him. Weird mutated people. Derelict ship. Some power, but not much. Lights were dead save from that being projected by their helmets. Nothing seemed safe.

Halik ate it up. If not for his helmet a slight grin would be noticeable on his face. He paced around the shuttle. While sympathetic to Polkov's desire for an open environment, Halik was growing a greater and greater love for the battle of wits that came with war. Even if no sentient opponent was present, it was growing increasingly obvious that there was some mind behind the state of this ship. No accident had happened here. This was intentional. Survival could pend on dealing with what was left. That was enough to make Halik salivate over the possibilities of what could be within the shuttle. He keyed the door and it shot open.

(( Alright, so I love the idea of the fact that, at some level we're all getting some images from eachother's HUDs and whatnot. So, because of this! I'm gonna let you guys decide what I end up seeing as the door open! ))

 

[Darth Metus]

To be perfectly honest, Isley was becoming creeped out by the whole situation: his youthful bravery began to erode away the longer he gazed at the mutated beings within the pods. Disgust churned within his stomach as his squadmate's reactions sounded across the communication's line. A shudder ran down his spine and he wrenched his gaze away, shaking his head in an attempt to clear his mind of the gruesome image. That's when he heard his comrade Kyr's unmistakable voice, which caused a smirk to form upon the young male's face.

Kyr was one of the few Mandalorians aboard that Isley had worked with previously, and he had developed quite a respect for the Tusken Mandalorian. He didn't know whether or not his comrade's reaction to his statement was of confusion, or if he didn't know what a filter was. Isley opened his mouth to respond when the voice of Zef, the smuggler turned Mandalorian that Isley had also come to like, blared in his ears.

"Yes Zef," he responded, "check your bloody filters. I don't know what caused this mutations, but it sure as hell made a mess of these poor sods. I have no clue what caused this, or if it's out in the open, but I sure as hell don't want to end up like them. So, air or no air, check your bloody filters just to be safe." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Sounds to me like you're volunteering to head down to the reactor room, eh Zef?"

Perhaps Isley was being a tad overcautious, but then again they WERE in the middle of a derelict SITH ship in the middle of NOWHERE. He wanted to live long enough to make it back to a cantina and have a drink. If that meant checking his equipment constantly, so be it. Stepping away from the pods, he turned to his droid companion and simply motioned to the mutants. Kyr'ad went ahead and peered with, then set about making running multiple scans upon the pod's occupants while Isley took a closer look about the medical bay.

As he poked around, seeking any indication that would explain WHY there were mutated things in pods, a new voice sounded in his helm. It was that of Polkov, a Mandalorian that Isley had never worked with before. To the youth's knowledge, he went by the nickname "Bear" or something to that effect. He listened to his new comrade's opinion for a moment, then looked to the images he sent. "I don't recognize the symbol, but if I had to guess, it's of Imperial origin."

Isley's search of the medical bay turned out to be fruitless, and Kyr'ad's scans showed nothing outside of the norm...aside from the obvious mutations. That being said, the two pressed forward from the medical bay, headed in the direction of the Bridge.

'Hopefully, we'll find something of use there.' he thought.

 

[Lance of Dreams]

The confused Tusken didn't really grasp as to exactly what was happening, and was really beginning to wonder who the hell put him on this ship. As far as he could tell with were dead things in boxes with weird letters on them. His primitive nature simply could not grasp exactly how they had any relevance at all. Slightly irritated and bothered by the apparent fear or foreboding awareness that seemed to radiate off of his comrades like light of a star. He shook his head at the apprehension his brothers clasped to his shoulders, unaware of the weight it might hold. Going a bit ADD and stir crazy, Kyr finally decided he had enough 'play time' with his group and singled in his own silent way that he was going to scout ahead. They were a bit objective, but did they really have a choice? With nothing more than a thumbs up he was gone before they could even make a facial expression that would tell him otherwise.... not that he would have been able to tell anyway, but that is besides the point. He silently ran through corridors, peaked into rooms, and passed by hallways; illuminated only by the light on his head. He was running without incident (other than the occasional unopened crate of weird things that Kyr didn't seem to mention) when a particular room caught his attention. Lacking knowledge in general, he could not identify the room, but he could see it through a pane of cracked, blood-smattered glass. He was unsure if the light was red, or if it just appeared to be so through the blood, but one thing was for sure. In this room, there was power, just enough to keep a flickering light from dying completely. Pressed against the said window, was a very dead body, painted in what could only be its own red innards.

Kyr slowly surveyed the strange scene, obviously gaining a very uneasy feeling. He was also inadvertently sending what he saw to any of the Mando's who bothered to look on the technophobes channel. He didn't say anything, and fretted that by sheer superstition his voice would awake the long slumbering corpse. But unnerving still, is that how long had they estimated the ship to have been floating here? This corpse almost looked fresh enough to have been a kill from a week ago, and to Kyr it simply did not add up. There was a door into the room, and he was unsure what would happen if he kicked it down (unaware of the different atmosphere's entirely).

"There is dead here." He motioned to kick the door.

 

[Zef Halo]

Another Mandalorian was describing his feeling of unease and his disgust of this place on the main channel. Checking the transmission he noticed it was from a Mandalorian who went by the nickname of "Bear". Zef did not know the man personally but his stranger accent would be memorized by the former smuggler. It was fun how most of the Mandalorians here were feeling uneasy. Maybe most were young and maybe most were superstitous, and superstition had part in Mandalorian culture. Yet again the Mandalorians seemed quite focused and would react well to any danger. In the end Mandalorians were made for battle.

The Mandalorian that went by the nickname of Bear transmitted a new piece of the puzzle that was this stranded in space ship. After Isley's images of a horribly gone wrong experiment and the disgusting looking corpse that Kyr had just witnessed. Dead ship, dead people, dead mutations. This ship's mystery was becoming harder and harder to solve and the idea of this being a trap began to fade away in Zef's mind. The former smuggler had seen and had memorized what not symbols during his smuggling and gangster career. All gangs, all syndicates, all crime lords, everything that was a group of people had a symbol to represent them. This hydra looking symbol only reminded him of a long gone small-time gang of hustlers on Axxila that used to operate on the planet's lower levels. Their symbol had a creature that looked similiar to the hydra but it was obvious they had nothing to do with this.
"Nothing I have seen before." Zef stated. And to those who knew his backstory of a smuggler that had travelled a lot through the galaxy, which were almost all Mandalorians due to his eccentric background and personality, would mean that this symbol was something that probably only some people in the Galaxy have seen.

Right now Zef and his team were going through a corridor that would lead to one of the lower decks of this ship. One after another in a line they all thoroughly looked around with the help of their helmet lights and often switching through infrared vision in case they catch a glimpse of anything. Isley had previously demanded of Zef to check his filters although Zef was reluctant to do so due to the lack of logic behind it he still kept a scanner of the air on his HUD. Even though he proved he was right once again Zef did not reply with his saracastic comments this time but grunted on the main channel.

"Fine." He just said with a slight tone of annoyance. Zef had no thoughts of going down to the reactor room and he wished to stay away from there as much as possible. He just wanted to get on the bridge where he would relax to the soothing illuminators which revealed the infinite space. But someone had to turn the freaking lights on this place if they could be turned at all. And the former smuggler reallly wished that the reactors would be able to be turned on. Zef turned the main channel again. "It'd be a good idea to leave flares on major intersections of the ship so we could much easily navigate through this warship."

On a powerless huge ship it'd be good if you didn't get lost. Of course he always had his fellow Mandalorians blinking on his radar as points but the radar did not have a grid of this ship. The breaching teams should have easier time getting around neccessary points of this warship. Talking of intersections Zef's team finally reached a major one with two turbolifts around each going different ways. One of the Mandalorians with him took out a crystal which he shook making the crystal beam in red and left it on the ground where the paths went different ways. That was the flare. This intersection had four paths - one back to the Engine room the other continued to deck of this level of the ship while the turbolifts led to two different places - One led to the last and bottom deck of the ship where the reactor room was judging by the buttons on the turbolift which had descriptions to where did it lead, the other turbolift lead to the deck above this one which by the description was the level of a part of the crew compartments and mess hall. It would be useless for the team to divide itself when there was no power running through the ship, at least here, so the team would all venture to the reactor room and hopefully be able to restavrate the whole power on the ship.

The Mandalorian Bloodied of Zef's team instructed his team to begin their manual rope ride down the turbolift shaft. First of course the doors were open with bashful force. The journey down through the shaft was creepy and the bottomless dark shaft was scaring the former smuggler. The way down took a few minutes but they had a harder time forcing the turbolift door below to open. In the end they successfully did open it only to reveal another barren wide corridor which was to be expected judging by everyone's infrared scan beforehand. The team continued down the corridor and found a sign on the ship's wall that pointed to the direction of the reactor's room and the deck. It was only one. There were no crossroads here, the path from the turbolift led right towards the deck and the reactor room. According to the sign there was a maintence room too. One of the many on this warship, Zef believed.

The team continued forward not losing concentration and finally reached the deck of this level after a long stroll through the seemingly endless corridor. The team carefully passed the threshold of the wide deck which was full of consoles and different computers and technology used by maintence and repair teams that operated the reactors. And as soon as they made a few more steps in the empty deck one of his fellow Mandalorians yelled suddenly.
"Look out!"
A creature, unforunately by what Zef's eyes could tell, that looked similiar to the one Isley had seen before had jumped on one of the Mandalorians of his team. Blaster shots rained on the creature and it fell dead. Zef, with caution in his steps went to the fallen creature and inspected it. He quickly transmitted the images through the main channel and remained silent while the Bloodied of his team reported that they had contact. The former smuggler finally defeating his primal shock ran his hand through the scales of the creature and they felt quite tough. Finally regaining somewhat composure Zef spoke on the main channel:

"Whatever you saw, Isley, it has it's relatives here and their scales look like a tough armor to beat." Zef warned his fellow Mandalorians with as much as calmness as he could. " It's quite cold blooded judging by how quickly it's heat faded out. " And that meant they would be tougher to detect through obstacles seeing how this one surprised them. Before the smuggler could continue the Initiate who was attacked and had fortunately survived interrupted Zef.

"Th-this creature..." He spoke with quite an accent hinting that he was of an alien species and with a tone of trouble. " I don't kn-know if by coincidence or not but it lunged right at my neck."

And that was exactly where the armor's weakness was, the point between the helmet and the armor where the neck was. If this was not a coincidence it smelled a lot of trouble for the Mandalorians aboard as they seemed to be going to face a dangerous and deadly foe on this ship. Everything now was up to the higher ups on what course of action would be taken - retreat and destruction of this cursed ship or was this ship too valuable for the Mandalorians' plans for conquest and a challenge that had to be overcomed. Until orders came Zef had to pull his trigger once again as it seemed more than a few of this creatures were popping out of the other end of the deck. It was a battle of life and death, and Zef hoped that he would stay on the side of the living.


((I hope this is a good post, I am worried of deciding already what the opponents would be would annoy you guys, I hope I haven't ruined someone's plans with the introduction of those same dudes Isley saw. Please continue finding mysteries, guys and keep creating whatever you want in this plot since I am not the one writting it but we all are. Like don't forsake the thoughts you guys have had on the mysteries you wrote about - Halik's shuttle encounter which I left for him, sorry bro, along with Bear's symbol mystery, Isley's findings on what the hell is the creature which he visualized and created and I introduced it on the battlefield [ I hope it's not intruding on what plans you had for that creature, Isley, I would edit if you are heavily against whats happening ], and of course our sweet technophobic Tusken Raider's discovery of a fresh corpse. If you guys want me to edit anything just say. I apologize for any future inconvienience))

 

[Polkov Kravinof]

Polkov eyed the symbol warily, and knew that the memory of such a symbol would come in handy in the future. He moved away from the crates and began a sweep of the nearby area, making sure to keep himself in line of sight with the other Mandalorians as he poked around the hanger, which besides the occasional crate, was relatively empty of other cargo or anything else besides a few docked Imperial vessels. He was about to move on when his HUD registered movement on his right, and he swung around and raised his rifle up and looked down the sights at the area where the movement was registered, but to his surprise and unease he found the space next to him to be completely vacant, but found that one of the grates on the floor had been... torn open. He began to slowly edge his way over to the open grate, the barrel of his gun never moving from the direction of the grate, in case some nightmarish hell-spawn decided to rear its ugly head and attack Polkov. With veteran speed he pointed his rifle down into the hole, and switched on his helmet's light, which revealed a circular shaft that descended a good 10-15 meters down through a maze of cables and ended down to what appeared to be the corridor of a maintenance access tunnel. Again, movement registered directly down the hole, but whatever was tripping up his sensors was gone before he could visible see it.

Polkov grunted as another Mandalorian came to see if anything was up, to which Polkov replied, "Something tripped my movement sensor comrade, but whatever it was it was gone faster than a shriek-hawk in swoop..." He said as he eyed the tunnel again before slowly backing away from it, and deciding to comm his comrades across the ship once again. "Comrades, check any openings or access tunnels in the floor or walls. There may be something stalking us... I just had my motion sensors tripped but couldn't identified what it was before it used a maintenance tunnel to escape my sight. Be wary..." Just as he said that, his motion sensor identified movement directly behind him, and he swung around to face the wall adjacent to him, and by the soul of Mandalore the First he could swear he heard the distinct pitter-patter of claws on metal, much like a rat running through the walls of a home, and he heard what may be dozens of them. He didn't see any of these creatures, but he definitely heard them, and kept himself ready in case of an attack.

 

[Halik Falkosi]

He was surprised to see nothing within the primary room of the shuttle. It looked almost as if it had never been touched, at least outside of its normal ways. Nothing was hastily thrown anywhere. It looked... standard. He explored both of the side rooms slowly, blaster in hand and once again found nothing of noteworthiness. It was plain in every way shape and form. As he walked toward the cockpit he was half ready to find a corpse in the pilots chair. It seemed that there were plenty of corpses lying around. If this shuttle had been moved but had never left the hanger then surely someone would be in the cockpit. From outside he had not been able to see if it was inhabited. So he clicked a keypad and the door to the cockpit opened. His gun traced the entire cabin, ready to shoot if anything was present but nothing. Not a hint of activity. Even the chairs were straight. Perfectly straight even.

Halik found nothing within the shuttle. Not a body, nothing. Yet it had clearly been moved. Why? How? By whom? And why such a short distance? Outside there was no damage or marks that made it look like it had been hit into that position as another ship hastily fled. It truly made no sense. He would have expected some kind of impact marking, even on a heavy transport, to give this away. The plating beneath the landing pads didn't even give any indication of moving. So why was it shifted? Was it landed like this perhaps? The shuttle that they had ridden in on wasn't landed in any orderly way. Could this transport have brought someone in? That seemed like a silly conclusion to come to. However, due to its lack of damage its power would likely still work. So he made his way to the cockpit and sat in its pilot seat and looked over the control panel. It looked fairly standard so he hit what he imagined would power it up. Sure enough the shuttle powered up.

Just as he was about to search the logs for some kind of idea as to what purpose this warship held, he began to get the information from Polkov and Zef. Without hesitation he shot out of the chair and began to move towards the door of the shuttle. His blaster ready for any kind of attack. A few Mandalorians were still within the hanger so he imagined he would have a tip as to if anything was coming, but with the amount of darkness outside the shuttle who knew. All around. Halik knew one thing. This ship was about to become a hunting ground.

Just as his foot was about to step onto the boarding ramp of the shuttle, an alarm went off from within it. This got him to raise a brow and he turned back around to head straight back to the cockpit. He looked over a hologram that now appeared on the transport. It showed both the warship and the Mandalorian vessel not far from it. The did the shuttle just detect the Mandalorian ship... but that did not make much sense... it was displaying the entire warship and not just the shuttle. Could they be linked in their entire network? That'd be unusual though. Then, clearly on the screen arcs were being fired from the Sith warship directly and the Mandalorian ship. As he looked out the front screen he saw, clear as day, that in fact green turbolasers were firing from the ship they were on. But he could only see this for a second, the hanger doors suddenly went slamming shut. The last thing he saw was the Mandalorian being engulfed in laser fire.

His eyes darted back to the hologram. Within seconds the hologram only displayed one ship... Well one large ship. Small dots were appearing on the display that seemed to indicate landing craft that had cut into the ship. Some strange system must have existed in the ship because they now were slowly floating away from the ship. Over the open channel all he could say is, "Command was destroyed. We are trapped."

 

[Darth Metus]

Isley could scarce believe what his HUD was showing him. And even less so, Isley could scarce belive what he was hearing being transmitted across the channel. The mutated beings in the pods...were wandering about the ship and assaulting his kinsmen. What's worse was Halik's last transmission: the command vessel was decimated and they were trapped aboard the infested warship. He stopped for a moment and collected his thoughts, contemplating the best possible course of action he should take. In light of the recent circumstance, heading to the bridge was now a key objective, seeing as, if the power was turned on, they could get a message to Mandalore and be liberated from the ship.

With that rationale in mind, the young Mandalorian picked up his pace as he went along the various corridors of the vessel. After what seemed a quiet eternity, he ended up at the Bridge. It was dark...deserted...and Isley's light revealed a series of mangled corpses strewn all over the place. "Oh...this does not bode well..." he muttered, signalling for Kyr'ad to watch his back. He swept over the room and took a quick double-take when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye; Kyr'ad detected it as well and moved to face whatever it was that has slinked about. Then, a guttural screech tore across the Bridge as a scaly, clawed, mutated-looking creature bounded out from the shadows and tackled the droid to the ground.

Isley leapt back in surprise, but then immediately lit up the beast with blaster fire. After a few point-blank bursts, the creature keeled over. Dead. Yet...the altercation had attracted more company. A series of guttural growls erupted from all around the pair, and as Kyr'ad got to its feet, Isley spoke solemnly into the channel. "Zef...Hurry up and get the power back on..."

 

[xyzip]

Is this still up?

 

[Lance of Dreams]

The Tusken kicked through the door, immediately flung back by the escaping atmosphere within the room. Falling on his back, he struggled to his feet in a slight daze. At times, he wished he was not a simple Tusken, as he would know such things would happen otherwise. But none the less he was Tusken, and continued on without worry. Until that is, the strange dead began to move. It was not because of the escaping oxygen, oh no, Kyr would have known the difference. It started with the head, which he now realized, was bloodied not to impact or slashed to death by an unknown foe, it was in fact one of those creatures that had been seen by Isley and the rest. Its hind quarters seemed to sink into the lower back, worn on the corpse like a large backpack.

"Lich!" He yelled. He reached for his slug thrower, when the corpse he assumed to be dead in fact was being moved by root like structures grown through them originating from the digits of the beast, wrapping around the bones in between muscle tissue, and exiting the skin to once again submerge. All over the body dried blood caked everywhere, and the beast screamed while it charged with its sickening locomotion to attack the Tusken. There was not enough time between reaching for his weapon and the beast climbing on top of him. It was for one thing unsettling to have a corpse land on you, and another entirely when behind its blood body was a mouth full of teeth and hands full of claws trying to kill you as well, only to condemn you to the same fate as the corpse. One hand reached to wrap around something, anything that he thought might help him, while he bashed at the snapping maw of the ugly beast. He was able to through off the corpse and creature long enough to roll and grab a knife. He charged it, and reasoned that it was the beast he should aim for, and the head was the most likely target.

He jumped into the air as the beast scrambled upward while charging, and as he rolled through the air, the world turned into slow motion. He aimed at the beast, and threw his beskar dagger at the target. It cycled through the room at incredible speed, its hilt revolving around the blade once before its shining ivory sunk deep into the skull of the beast. He fell and rolled into an upright stance and turned to see a writhing beast lose control, until it eventually was stilled. However, as his vision began to broaden, and his hearing sharpen to individual sounds, he realized his little survival dual was not the only one. He could make out bits and pieces of the flood of information passing over him. The Fleet apparently had been destroyed, and they were stranded here.

"Stay away from dead things. Lich's lurk." Wariness bordering the line of fear was increasing within the simple, easily mystified barbarian as events piled up. He was unsure how much longer he could stand this with his amount of intellect. The assumption he shall make it like everyone else, is indeed poor. He heard a great stirring very nearby. He pulled out his Gaderffii.

 

[Verz Horak]

Verz cautiously walked down the hallway in what seemed to be the crew quarters of the warship. He held his blaster out, ready to shoot anything that didn't ping as a friendly on his HUD. He felt the cold touch of fear since he saw the transmitted images of those creatures. He swallowed, feeling the fear about to overwhelm him. He took a moment, stopped walking, and took a couple deep breaths, just as his father had taught him when he was young.

As he resumed walked the hall, he saw everything was in order. Nothing was scattered like a crew evacuating would have done. Everything was impeccable, which was strange for an abandoned icebox floating in Mando space. He walked towards a room that seemed to belong to a quartermaster. Verz turned on his night vision and turned off the blaster light, in case something was waiting for him. He took one quick breath, and prepared himself for what he might find. He tightend his grip on his favorite CQC gun, a Verpine shatter pistol, and pulled out his Mandolorian Iron knife, both given to him by his father.

He opened the door slowly, and walked in even slower. The sharp, metallic tang of blood was in the air. He looked down and saw his boot was in a dried pool of red blood. Human blood. He quickly looked for the source, and was horrified when he did. What he saw was a human body, torn open and splattered over the back corner of the room. He walked toward it, and saw it was covered with savage teeth marks and that most of the viscera was missing from the corpse. The victim's eyes were still open in an expression of horror, and the face was blood spattered as well. The person wore Sith Trooper armor, but the beast that killed him slashed through it as if it weren't there. A terrifying thought. Then there was the smell, the horrible, stomach clenching, vomit inducing smell. It smelled like nothing he had smelled before, worse than rotting corpses on the battlefield. Verz nearly vomited, but held himself still, trying to get his helmet to filter out the smell.

He then heard a soft squishy sound, and instinctively turned around.

"What the fierfek have I gotten myself into?" he whispered to himself.

In front of him was a creature like the others, but larger and taller, at least three meters tall and two wide. It looked like it was fully developed, and it had a swollen abdominal area. Behind it was what seemed to be a mess of slime, with lumps the size of his head scattered throughout the purpleish-red ooze coating that half of the room. He quietly started moving backwards, hoping the beast would not notice him. He activated his helmet's transmitter and sent images to everyone onboard the Force-forsaken cesspool of a ship.

Then the beast's many eyes opened up. It looked around, unfocused, then all seven of its eyes looked at him. He saw a long, slimy tounge wriggle out of the beast's mouth and lick one of its eyes. It then opened its mouth and he saw knife sized teeth in two jagged rows. The creature made a low, gutteral noise and got up on all fours.

Verz raised his Verpine, and fired a shot. He had a wide bore Verpine, so he could use many types of ammo. His Verp was loaded with a combination of slugs and scatter rounds. He quickly shot off one of each, and managed to hit two of the creature's eyes. It let out a blood curdling roar and started approaching him. Verz quickly pulled out his repeating blaster and fired off several shots, hitting the other eyes. The creature roared even loarder, if that was possible, and blindly swiped a massive arm at him. It just barely missed taking his head off. He fired another few rounds at the creature, but they did nothing to the slime covered scales except darken them a little. The craeture sniffed loudly, then tured its head right to where he was, and let out another growl. Verz quickly got an idea on how to best this monstrosity. He dropped back a bit, as if to make for the door, pulled out his knife,and purposely clanged it against the wall. The creature growled, opening its mouth again. He quickly pulled out a thermal detonator he had primed, and tossed it towrd the creature. It blindly tried to bite it, and swallowed the detonator whole. Verz then made for the door for real, shooting behind the creature to distract it. He slammed the durasteel door shut, and heard a muffled whump. He dared to peek back into the room, and saw the creature lying a pool of black blood, gut ripped open and smoking from the detonator.

He sighed, feeling the adrenaline rush that fueled his insane plan fade. He put his knife away and spoke on the open comm frequency.

"You guys might want to see this"

 

[Verz Horak]

[Is this alive?]