Rookie
seven steps in
'I remember science class, if chemistry could silence the lions laugh I'd be fine' - Aesop Rock
"T-6, can we dock there and explore?"The Salvager, turning his head to face the Astromech at his side, was met with the whirring sound of the droid's reply. Eyes rising, he transfixed his gaze back on the subject of his inquisitiveness. Pieces of whatever behemoth this was hung there in the vacuum, scorched black with flame which extinguished the spirit of the place. The freighter that the pair were aboard rose above the rubble, careening high above the vista before them, revealing the body of the ship, which aside from the few blinking lights - dark eyes winking in the Abyss - was as lifeless as the mechanical carnage that surrounded it.
After a long moment, the terminal to The Salvager's right surged with light and he snapped himself away from the slow, hypnotic churning of the wreckage. On the terminal, an external schematic drew itself, the pair's scanners tracing the hull of the greatest piece of debris. The Salvager examined it thoroughly, his fingers clutching the holographic image and twisting it to and fro. Though many scars crossed the surface of the remains, the ever pragmatic Salvager tapped the hologram once on the bottom side, lighting a section of the pale blue image up with red. Empty escape pod bays usually made for handy entrances.
It was only minutes before the vessel came within striking distance of its target. Thrusters ignited along the front and sides of the ship and it slowed to a crawl, lining itself up with the makeshift dock. Aligning the ship correctly took longer than The Salvager anticipated, but through trial and error, the pair aboard the encroaching ship heard the rewarding snap and hiss of their gangway attaching well enough. The Salvager paused, skimming over diagnostics of their connection. The outdated docking bay made airtight boarding impossible for the newer freighter, which served to tell The Salvager that whatever this thing used to be, it had been here for some time.
Adequately prepared as always, The Salvager pulled equipment from the walls of the hall behind his cockpit while he left for the docking platform, followed closely by T-6, the red and white Astromech which served as his lone companion on long haul searches. By the time he entered the elevator airlock, he was already dressed. As modern as his ship was, the attire he wore was far from cutting edge, though it did the job just fine, it always had. The elevator doors spread open and the duo scavengers hovered towards the belly of this leviathan. The Salvager wondered whether anything aboard would be operational, what a great accomplishment it would be to exhume this corpse and bring it home.
The interior -exactly as The Salvager assumed- was as lifeless as their entry point. Beyond the initial doorway stretched a long corridor lined with tubes of halogen emergency lights, many of which were long since dead, leaving scarce few orange blips to punctuate the structure's shape. As suspected, scanners quickly revealed the complete lack of any atmosphere, signifying the ship's life support systems had stopped working already. The Salvager and his companion lurched into the hallway and made their way deeper. The Salvager reached to his side, prying a small orb no bigger than his palm from the pocket of his suit, he pressed his thumb into an indentation on the surface of the machine and it came to life, white lines of light igniting across its shell. The orb spun away from The Salvager's fingers and sped ahead, disappearing quickly around a corner. Immediately, The Salvager's HUD updated with the orb's progress as it scanned its surroundings, mapping the interior where it roamed and sending resulting map directly to its activator. The Salvager produced four more identical machines from the same pocket and activated them in kind. In lieu of a working command console to pull the on board schematics from, older mapping techniques would have to do.
The mapping would, even with no resistance or dead ends -at the hands of security doors or impasssable debris- would take many hours at least, simply given the size of the exterior. For now, the pair of explorers ventured onwards. The black halls bent and wound, gave way to The Salvager's sight and branched off into untold numbers of other aisles and small open rooms which he scanned briefly for anything noteworthy before moving on. Several minutes passed and one of the machines seemed to be mapping a more expansive area further along his path, only several hundred meters away. He paused for a time, a feeling of unease overcoming his senses. Something had clearly happened here, that much was obvious, the destruction wasn't bad enough to warrant the assumption of a space battle, much of the interior was entirely bare and there was, as of yet, no sign of struggle or conflict aboard. It looked as if the facility had been abandonned in a hurry, The Salvager just couldn't help but wonder why. Eager to discover more, The Salvager set his course for the large room.
T-6 veered around the final corner first, coming to face the open door to what appeared to be an obervation platform. The Salvager appeared seconds behind, gliding onward past the Astromech into the room. A handful of feet into the room, The Salvager stopped himself suddenly, stabilizing thrusters halting his momentum nearly immediately. He panned his vision across the room, taking in the scene of the observation deck. Mouth ajar, he lifted his gaze and studied the room from side to side. The floor and far window were black with dried blood and gore and several corpses in states of months long decay littered the far all. It took a minute for The Salvager to drink in what he was seeing. His thoughts quickly turned to his own safety, he could tell by the bodies and blood that these remains couldn't have been more than a few months old, but the rest of what he had seen made it look like this place had been abandonned for decades. It then stood to reason that this was another salvage crew who arrived some time before he had. No surprise, large sites like these were often found and scavenged multiple times before being close to bare. The question then remained: What killed these people?
Tenatively, The Salvager hovered forward towards the departed. They definitely weren't dressed officially, and it looked like they weren't wearing protective suits at all, which meant that when they had been here, the life support had still been working and the ship had breathable air. Even in years of solo endeavours, seldomly did he come across carnage like this. The bodies were torn to pieces, dried blood painting vicious strokes on the glass and floor. Curiosity, as it had cats before him, got the best of The Salvager and he turned his body to face the floor, hands pawing at the shredded remnants of a jacket for any clue to these people's identities. His fingers came across a lump within the folds of leather and he dug in, prying out a datapad from what he could only assume was once a pocket. The screen had been broken badly, rendering any built in display worthless. He handed it down to T-6 who opened a hatch on the side for the datapad to fit. Once it was attached, T-6 beeped and begun playback on the last log.
T-6 projected the holographic form of a deeply tanned human woman.
"Captain Carena Vurma of the Wingtip, log sixty-four. Yesterday we responded to a distress beacon which appeared on our scanners during our sleep cycle, the signal was scrambled and weak but we managed to track it to a field of debris in this area. The size of these satellites is unbelievable, we can't seem to figure out how things this large didn't show up on our long range scanners earlier. The only explaination is that the larger debris still have functioning power grids, enough at least to conceal its presence."
"We've run preliminary scans of the exterior of these vessels and found a suitable entry point. Wreckage this large should be a goldmine and if it still has power, we may even be able to move sections of it to a safer location with less debris so we can strip the hull for alloy. It's been a month since our last viable salvage so the whole crew is looking forward to a big pay cheque out of this one. Carena out."
The Salvager let out a long breath and hung his head inside his suit. His hand rose and he made several loops around his chest and head, a sign of reverence to the dead. If nothing else, the Captain's name and the name of the ship could possibly be used to track down who these people were and, hopefully begin the process of somebody alerting their families. Whatever had murdered these people was likely also responsible for the lack of power on the ship now and there was a distinct possibility that whatever it was, it had died along with the life support. The Salvager checked his map again and hoisted a blaster rifle from his back over his left shoulder and into his hands. Life support or no life support, he wasn't about to get jumped by whatever creature had done this.
Hours passed while the pair probed the ship, following the maps his drones were creating was proving quite efficient. Together they had salvaged a handful of valuable microchips and were accumulating a small pile of wiring and durasteel panelling. The exploration in the silence of the abandoned satellite was cathartic, in truth, it was that same silence which had seduced The Salvager into working alone in the first place. The Galaxy contained quintilliions of sentient life forms and the number grew as each day passed. If nothing else, that had resulted in the Galaxy becoming a very noisy place. It was these forgotten husks that dared to penetrate the abject cacophany of inhabited space and allowed The Salvager to escape into his head. He was no Jedi, peace had never come easy to his head.
The word Security was special for lots of reasons. Security stations not only serve as hubs for surveilance, often affording the ability to download full internal schematics of buildings or ships, but could also be used -with power provided by an external source- to access security camera footage, central databases of codes for liimited access areas and an untold number of other information. Besides the value of knowledge alone, The Salvager was hopeful he would find a store of weapons or ammunition within, military hardware could sell for a hefty price and he couldn't wait to see what was inside.
Nearly salivating, he hurried to the door and nearly dragged T-6 behind him. The droid beeped impatiently and begun its interface with the console to the right of the door. While the initial blast door had taken seconds, even the older secuirty measures for this truly restricted area tool several minutes for the Astromech to bypass. The door rumbled and spun clockwise before slowly coming undone, cracking open enough for The Salvager to slip his fingers in behind it and with the aid of his feet on the wall beside it, he pulled the door ajar.
Inside, the right hand wall was layered thick with terminals and screens, a few chairs hung suspended in the air. Towards the far wall was two small crates which were anchored to the floor. Perking up considerably, The Salvager made his way towards them and reached out, flipping the manual latch of the lid upwards and swinging it open. A choir of angels could have resounded through the ship as several blasters and ion charges floated free from the box. The Salvager would have jumped for joy if he weren't in zero gravity. Carefully he guided the contents of the box back inside and secured it again, then unhooked both crates and moved backwards to tether them to T-6 for transport out. Listing the contents would have to come later, for now he wanted to access these terminals, he was itching for a complete map.
T-6 boosted towards the consoles, hooking himself to them and restoring power to a section of them. The monitors lit up and flickered a few times before returning to stable images. T-6 beeped into The Salvager's communicator, indicating that much of the mainframe's data was badly corrupted but he was downloading what he could. In the meantime, if only for The Salvager's ammusement, T-6 began playback of whatever security footage wasn't corrupted beyond repair. The images were choppy and changed rapidly as each video file ended prematurely. The Salvager could make out scientists and engineers littering the ship, there must have been thousands of them here from what he could see. He watched for several minutes, trying to take as much note of what was going on as he could piece together from the jumbled footage, which was slim to nothing.
"T-6, can you go back to the last time the ship had power and show me the obervation deck we were in before? The one with the crew..." The droid gave him a low, drawn out hum and accessed the requested files, linking the audio to The Salvager's speakers.
The monitor showed an image of the obervation platform, a crew of nine emerged into the frame, blasters at the ready. From the other side of the room, a figure entered through a large door. Humanoid, naked and grey, taller than any of the crew who turned to face it, their eyes wide. The figure's features were mostly human from what The Salvager could make out, though its right arm -in contrast to its relatively human left- ended in a series of long, coiling digits which wrapped around themselves, knotting and untying, caressing the figure's naked form. The Salvager recognized the being as Yuuzhan Vong, a species any experienced wayfarerer knew at least a little about, if only from data gathered from various historical sites. The crew raised their arms, yelling to each other "Vong!" in some shape or form and immediately opened fire. The monsterous shaper lunged forward, flailing its long tentacles in unpredictable arcs as the blaster fire tore into its flesh. Unphased, two of the tentacles wound around two of the men's wrists before whipping backwards, literally disarming the two poor souls in an impressive show of gore. It took mere seconds for the horror to tear apart the crew, severing limbs with tentacles and mutilating their skulls with concealed finger-spears. Then it stopped moving, encircling its head with its tenticular hand speeding away, drenched in blood, through the door the crew had entered from.
The Salvager watched in solemn quiet the scene which unfolded on the camera. He left himself go from the terminal and drifted backwards where he nudged against the back wall, putting his hands on the front of his helmet. T-6 let out a mournful whistle and disconnected itself from the terminal. Without a noise, the droid uploaded a fortunate find for The Salvager to see. The map his drones were still slowly contructing was replaced with a complete schematic of the satellite. The Salvager shook his head clear of the dark scene replaying behind his eyes and focused on the new map. T-6 seemed to have used the security console to perform a minimal diagnostic scan of the ship as well, which revealed that a small area of the satellite was still sealed and running on a backup power source. A medical facility it looked like.
Sterile smell rose above the dim blue glow of machines running on low power. Whoever had been here before The Salvager obviously hadn't found this place. Cautiously he moved through the room, fingers lightly brushing the steel panels. From the corner of the room, a blue scanner was still operational, flckering alone in the otherwise murky laboratory. The Salvager approached, finding the terminal on the side and pressed the touch screen softly. The console hummed to life, resuming whatever had been on the screen before the facility was abandonned. It was the medical diagnostic of a patient -subject?- that had been here.
[DESIGNATION] Yun Sai'Tahm - #7621
[SPECIES] Yuuzhan Vong
[SEX] Male.
[AGE] 35 GSY.
[HEIGHT] 7'5", 228cm.
[WEIGHT] 286lb, 130kg.
[SKIN] Ash Grey.
[SYNAPSE MAP] TY-41
[FORCE SENSITIVITY] None.
[LAB NOTES]
7621, Yun Sai'Tahm has responded to neural remapping. Genetically, this Vong male is a typical example of what we need to work with, the genetic template was accepted almost immediately and though we are grappling with synchronization ratios in the low 70 percentile -far too low to report but significant improvement on past subjects- we are confident to achieve a 100% rate within the next five years. Remarkably, the neural synapse map has been fully accepted. TY-41, a Vong Shaper Adept's map was used and the subject has already shown reflexive aptitude for Biot cultivation. We have compiled the following report to send. Progress like this could save our program.
"What the hell was this place..." The Salvager threw the question to the empty laboratory before stepping back from the terminal. This subject, Yun Sai'Tahm, there was no mistaking this as the creature from the security footage earlier. This monster had killed those people. The experiments report, corrupted as it was, gave The Salvager insight if nothing else. Moving throughout the room, he thumbed through papers and notes. He had thought at first perhaps this was a cloning facility but whatever experiements they were doing were of a completely different nature. This laboratory was mapping brains, copying and reproducing neural synapses and altering the minds of their subjects.
"Cloning is one thing..."
"...This is playing God."
He breathed in deep to expunge the unease from his head and returned to T-6 who had been downloading anything of worth from the medical terminals. The two moved deeper into the labyrinth, corridors lined with cells and rooms filled with disused stasis tanks, drained to conserve power containing nothing but mumified remains. Any medical supplies had been taken, presumably by the workers on their departure, leaving little more than information to scavenge. Thoughts returned to his map and The Salvager found it impossible to shake the anxiety of being here in this laboratory. The silent, eerie maze of the satellite was unsettling enough but the knowledge here scratched its claws deep into The Salvager's psyche, making him long to float alone in the void again.
The decision was made and the pair left the laboratory quickly. The longer he lingered, the more he was realizing that he shouldn't be here. He was certain that if he looked hard enough, he could find some of the most valuable salvage of his career but the dread piled and pressed on top of itself over and over weighed him down. With that said, there was one last part of the ship he simply had to explore, the possibilities too valuable for any amount of dread to turn him away from: The Hangar.
The hangar was open, unsecured as anything could be. Immediately, The Salvager was slightly disappointed by the lack of any ships or fuel present in the vast chamber. The far wall was completely open, allowing debris to flow freely in and out of the hangar, creating a field of panelling, wiring and discarded personal items. The Salvager sifted through wreckage, pens, coats and shoes for several minutes before seeing anything of interest. An Old datapad hung suspended in the air, twirlling around. He reached out and grabbed it from its spiral, throwing himself back around to face T-6, the same input from the last datapad opened and the droid played the last log. The face of a Twi'lek male greeted them.
"They've pulled the plug on the facility. We were told yesterday that all projects were being scrapped immediately, that no more funding was coming our way. We're officially not getting paid to be here anymore. Six years of my life down the tube for nothing, little meaningful progress, what a tremendous waste of our minds. Everyone is leaving today, back to their families, their old lives. I'm going back to Coruscant, as far as I'm concerned, this place can burn."
The man's ire was laid on thick. Bitterness dripped from every syllable and The Salvager felt a pang of pity for the people here. To be told overnight that they were no longer needed must hurt any scientific mind invested in his experiments. The Salvager closed his eyes, thinking deeply. He threw T-6 a look and wrapped his fist around a length of exposed wire, throwing himself over the Astromech towards the door they had entered from. He was done here, between the few electronics and the crates of weapons he found, the salvage was successful enough and the tension had mounted into an unbearable cascade. Every fibre of The Salvager wanted to leave this place, to move on and let this day fade from his memory forever.
Airlocks spun and hissed, The Salvager rose his hands to either side of the helmet and stepped onto his ship again, pulling the heavy garment from his head he breathed deep and content. T-6 overtook him and headed for the cockpit to begin departure preparations. Disrobing, The Salvager followed the droid and slumped down in his chair, running his fingers through dark hair. Since hours ago, he could relax in the comforting womb of his cockpit, breathing easy again. He fingered at the command console, setting a course for a huttese weapons dealer he knew. One by one thrusters ignited and the small freighter pulled away from the wounded behemoth, turning away and sailing into the black.
