MC: AOTE: Rhea

[JasraLantill]

Beryl stepped off the lift and went to investigate the lockers in the room while Ryshana and the others approached the door to the bridge. As she got closer to the lockers, she saw that there were names on them.

 

“Lieutenant Zagreb, Ensign. Milai, Lt. Commander Boteel," she read. "These must be the bridge personnel.” She passed by them slowly, reading the names as she passed, but then paused in front of one in particular. She frowned.

 

"Oh…. no kriffin' way….," she whispered under her breath.

 

She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching her that closely, then opened the door all the way so that the name was now hidden from view.

 

Inside the locker, there was a pair of environmental boots and gloves, a flash visor, some out-of-date food capsules, a standard issue Republic blaster, and a datapad. She took the datapad, and slid it into one of her trouser pockets, then took out the blaster and examined it. It still had some charge.

 

“Here, Oliver,” she said, tossing him the blaster. “This packs more of a punch than that hold-out blaster you’ve got. Easy to use, too. Just point and shoot.” She grinned then at Jana. “Sorry, Jana. No knives inside this one.”

[stingerhs]

Ryshana looked at the door momentarily. This one was a tough security door, and Ryshana remembered that there was a blast door right on the other side of the door. That meant that this door was going to take a while to open.

 

Taking out her lightsaber, Ryshana activated it and stabbed it into the bottom center of the door. Sparks flew out everywhere, and molten metal quickly began to form at the lightsaber's insertion point. Pushing upwards on the lightsaber in an attempt to cut the door vertically, Ryshana struggled to push it upwards. "The blast doors are closed on the other side. This is going to take a bit longer than I thought," Ryshana commented out loud.

 

Concentrating on the Force, Ryshana gathered energy within herself and once again pulled upwards on the saber. This time, the saber moved fairly easily. A couple of sparks would occasionally fly out, and molten metal was slowly dripping down the door along the cut.

 

Finally reaching the point she was aiming for, Ryshana pulled out her lightsaber and made a series of slashes on the left side of the cut. After a second, Ryshana then used the Force to pull out a large section of the door. Just behind it was the blast doors, as Ryshana had sensed. However, now all Ryshana needed to cut through was the blast doors instead of both the main security door and the blast door.

 

Plunging her lightsaber back into the point she had pulled it out of before, Ryshana then worked to cut a fairly strange pattern in the blast door. After about 20 seconds of cutting, the top section of the blast door suddenly shifted and fell out of the ceiling. With the top parts out of the way, Ryshana then used the Force to easily lift the remaining bottom sections out of the way.

 

"After you, Jack," Ryshana stated as she shut off her lightsaber. Just in case, however, Ryshana didn't bother to put the lightsaber back into the slot on her false leg brace.

[starmark2k]

Nic watched Ryshana work on the door and smiled, she was getting more and more useful everyday. He Noticed beryl going through one of the lockers and became obviously confused.

 

"Didn't take you as a grave digger, Beryl."

[JasraLantill]

"Grave digger?" Beryl was suddenly flustered at Nic's observation, then she realised what he meant. "Oh... you mean the locker?" Her expression calmed and she cleared her throat. "The person who had this locker isn't dead." She hesitated, but then closed the door slowly so Nic could see the name on the door. "Not that I knew he served on this ship at any point in time, but... I don't think he's dead."

 

Lt. Cmdr. B. Quitaan.

 

"I did tell you I came from a big family, right?" she said nervously.

[starmark2k]

"Yeah." Nic nodded. "Another one of those many brothers of yours." Nic turned back to see if Jack was ready to go in yet. "Is he one of those who joined up with those Rebels?"

[JasraLantill]

"Erm... well,.... Berasmus has pretty much been with the current 'Republic' regime the whole time, if you know what I mean." Beryl bit her lower lip. "The rest of my family don't talk to him very much. Or even mention him, really," she added.

[steven]

"Right..." Said Jack, not taking any interest in what Beryl had just said. Instead he took several steps into the dark bridge. As he walked in the lights activated to show a normal bridge, expect without any people. "Well nothing looks like fowl play... I surpose we should try and hack into the files."

[Writer]

"Would give us maybe a better idea of exactly what happened," Jana agreed. Turning to Beryl, she offered a little smile and said, "If you don't want to talk about your brother, we won't make you. On the flip side, if you want somebody to talk to..." She gestured, indicating herself as an option for any talking Beryl might want to do.

[starmark2k]

Nic followed Jack in and looked around the room, it was as if everyone onboard the ship had just disappeared. Computers were on lights were working and even the basic automated system were running. Nic heard a creaking noise come from behind him.

 

"Yeah, everyone fan out and check the system, Jack try and hack the captains journals that should hold answers."

[JasraLantill]

Beryl gave Jana a sort of a sad smile. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

She turned then to Oliver. “C’mon, Oliver,” she said, guiding him through the bridge door. “You’re the medic. You can help me check out that radiation containment field. See if it’s safe and, if it is, how long it’s safe for us to stay here.”

 

She and Oliver walked over to the life support systems station. “Kriffin’ hell,” Beryl muttered as she examined the panels in front of her. “They’ve got stuff routed in loops all over the place. Never seen such a mess in all my life!” She motioned for Cloud to come over and have a look.

 

“We’re safe enough here for the moment,” said Oliver as he studied the radiation monitors. “But if we want to go to other places on the ship, we’ll have to change the matrix of the containment field.”

 

“That’s not going to be easy. Would it be safe enough to just turn off sections of the field for a little while?” Beryl asked.

 

Oliver shrugged. “If you didn’t stay too long in those areas? Probably.”

 

“Probably?”

 

“Hey, medicine isn’t an exact science, and I’m just a medic, not a doctor.”

 

“Well, I suppose we’ll just have to hope that what we’re looking for is here on the bridge then.” Beryl looked over at Jack who was on the other side of the bridge. “Find anything interesting in the captain’s log, Jack?”

[steven]

"Accutally I have." Said Jack who was reading several files "I found out what was going on in the Rhea and possibilly what the radiation is. It seems that this captain was a allowing illegal biological experiments..."

 

"What sort of experiments?" Asked Oliver

 

"Good questions. From what I can gather they were taking the conscious, or mind, and placed them into a biological made bodies, in terms resurrecting them." Replied Jack. "There's a list of experiments however the file has been corrupted and only shows some sorta code name/number."

[stingerhs]

"You mean like transferring a person's mind over from their body to a new body. Hmm, well, that's interesting," Ryshana stated as if she knew something about it.

[Writer]

Jana's eyes widened slightly. "If they were able to succeed, a person could live forever... theoretically."

[stingerhs]

Ryshana shook her head at Jana's comment. "There's no real comparison between living here and now versus becoming one with the Force. Besides, there are other factors within the Force that would prevent you from living forever by utilizing that technique unless you had a very strong connection with the Force," Ryshana commented.

[Writer]

Jana frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe the reason they didn't succeed here... did they?"

 

A slight shiver ran through her as she thought of the possibility.

[steven]

"Maybe so but there's no force at work here, these people have the same force power as a wamp rat. And not really Jana, according the files it seems the body has to have died first and his mind would have to be about contained in a certain way or everything buggers up."

[starmark2k]

"Hang on a second, so they've been sticking old brains in new bodies." Nic said looking over at jack. "Does it say why they did it or if the subjects were clones or even volunteers?"

 

Nic wanted to know if this was one of the Empire's early experiment's, He heard of the Empire's various illeagal experiments. Nic had Always thought the emperor had been doing stuff before it was made legal, let another failing of the jedi.

[steven]

"It seems they used whoever they got their hands on. Someone who died after a space station explosion forced them into empty space, or someone who was killed who was executed by the Sepertists by launching them from an airlock." Said Jack looking through several files "It's seems that the one thing all these subjects had in common was that it was the great vacume of space which killed them."

[JasraLantill]

"Vacuum of space?" Beryl suddenly recalled the fate of Tasser Goum, the Galaxy Killer who had been flushed out the airlock by Nic and Jack. She shuddered at the thought of someone using his demented brain in another body. “So, that Imperial Commander who wanted us to get this information for him, could, in theory, continue these experiments and make his own bio-engineered army using the brains of criminals, murderers and anyone else he happens to come across.” She looked at the others. “If he did, he could challenge the Emperor for control.”

 

“It’s a sign,” said Oliver.

 

“Yeah. A sign of a stupid and demented mind,” said Beryl.

 

“No.” Oliver pointed to a fluctuation on the environmental monitor. “A bio sign.”

 

“What?” Beryl looked over his shoulder to see what he was seeing. “But isn’t that right in the middle of the radiation containment field?”

 

“Yes. Still, it looks like a bio sign to me.”

 

“It’s just a fluctuation caused by the radiation field,” Beryl said dismissively.

 

“Perhaps.” Oliver paused for a moment. “Or maybe it’s one of those bio-engineered bodies.”

 

Beryl grimaced. “Eeew.”

 

“Or maybe just the parts to make one.”

 

“Like I said… ‘Eeew.’”

 

“I think I can isolate that section from the rest of the field so we can investigate it,” Oliver said, reaching over to the controls. “Just give me a minute to….”

 

Beryl’s eyes widened with horror as Oliver’s fingers latched on to a red switch on the panel.

 

“OLIVER! NO! NOT THAT ONE!” Beryl called out just as Oliver killed the power to the containment grid on an entire level of the ship.

[Writer]

A slight shudder went through Jana's body and she grimaced at the explanation of bodies flushed out the airlock. Her right hand went to the faint scar left by the knife the Galaxy Killer had held to her throat.

 

As Beryl and Oliver carried on their conversation, she listened. Then, as Oliver reached for the red switch, Jana also yelled at him not to flick it. But then, the damage was done and Oliver glanced from Beryl to Jana and back, startled.

 

"What did I do?" he wondered, unaware of the problem he'd caused.

 

"That's the power override switch for..." she checked the panel. "... ich! That was the containment grid on level..." She paused, since the markings were somewhat worn. "Can't read the number, but judging by its position on the console, I'd say that was either the 'glowing' level or the one directly above or below it."

 

She shook her head. "Can't be any more specific than that... Beryl, check the panel there... see if you can figure it out based on the ship's configuration."

[starmark2k]

Nic ran over and looked over Jana's shoulder at the monitor she was reading from. Looking at it closely, he also couldn't tell where the containment field had been switched off. Nic turned so he was facing most of the crew. "We have to get the hell..."

 

Suddenly a loud noise was heard echoing through the ship and a the entire bridge shook violently for a few seconds. Nic had been knocked to the floor, but he quickly righted himself and looked at one of the consoles. His Eyes widened and he urgently turned around...

 

"O.K engine containment is down, we're about to explode..." Nic informed in a surpriseingly calm mannor. "So now we run for lives!"

[JasraLantill]

“Run?! Run where?!” Beryl asked Nic, as she frantically searched through the ship’s schematics on another control station. “Radiation has flooded the way we came in! And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d rather blow up than burn to a crisp!”

 

She looked over to the engineering station where Cloud was feverishly tapping on the console. The ship rumbled again, and then everything, including the emergency lights, went dark. For a moment, the ship was quiet as a tomb, and then the emergency lighting slowly came back on.

 

Beryl slowly let out the breath she was holding.

 

“I’ve stabilised the engine harmonics,” Cloud said. “It should hold off a total ion field breach for a few hours, but these controls here can’t take anymore load. We’ll have to get to an auxiliary control to vent off the radiation, then establish a containment field around the exit corridor.”

 

Beryl looked down at the monitor. “The only auxilliary control station that doesn’t have fatal levels of radiation is ….” She looked at Oliver, and her eyes narrowed. “Right near where you found your ‘bio’ sign.”

 

Oliver shrugged apologetically. “Sorry.”

 

“Well, we’ll have to use the access ladders to get down there,” said Cloud. “Lifts are off-line.”

 

“So, who’s going?” She looked at Nic, then looked askance at Jack.

[steven]

"I'll go," Said Jack, "I'm really the only one who knows my way around here anyways and let's face it, the Echo can still go on if I die. After all we still have Beryl to pilot the Echo. Cloud can tell me what to do via com. I suggest in the mean time everyone get back to the Echo as soon as you can."

[stingerhs]

"No, I'll go," Ryshana stated without hesitation. "I have a rough idea about how to move around this ship, and I have no fear about facing some random creature. Besides, with a bit of technique, radiation doesn't concern me."

[steven]

"This might not be just some random creature. This is a man we're talking about. An extremely viloent one. All, expect one, were, according to the records. And If I'm guessing correctly the radiation should muck up your force powers, so to speak. Your the last Jedi Ryshana, we can't risk you like this."