Departures
It turns out that not everybody was on board with the idea of heading into a Hastian’s infected plague pit. Shell Shock and Switch decided that it wasn’t really worth the risk. We needed a resupply on the way to the station anyway so dropped them off at the same time. Switch was keen to go his own way, we wished him luck. Shell Shock said it was just about the station. If we got out alive and ever needed her, just call. Less of a goodbye, more of a see you later.
We also found a safer home for Hunter. He’s been a great Guard Dog but he’s taken far too many beatings looking after us, it was time to find him a nice place to retire. Luckily, we found a good family that could look after him. Never seen so many battle-hardened crew claim to have something in their eye.
This left us short of manpower for heading into, well, anything really. Didn’t like the idea of heading into something like Imperial Research Station 37 with new crew that we didn’t really know. We liked the idea of heading in under strength even less.
The Replacements
We looked around and found three pretty solid replacements.
First up, Gumball, she’s going to be our Quartermaster. We have enough loot, parts, supplies, and crap on board that having someone to organise it should be pretty useful. Also good in the engine bay and while not as great as Switch, can still open up most things.
Then came Headcase. An interesting guy, he’s what folk call a Ravaged Trooper. A survivor of Hastian’s Plague. Figured that experience could be useful given where we’re headed.
Finally, we picked up Phantom. He’s a robotic Striker. When he closes distance his movements are like a ghost. You can barely see him, hence the name.
Crew berths filled, supplies replenished, we got back underway to the station.
Arrival
How to describe it? It’s big, I mean really big. I’ve never seen a space station this size. It must have taken years and cost millions of creds to construct. It could easily hold 30,000 people from its size. Oval in shape, the exterior completely covered in sensor arrays. As wide as it is long you could almost say it had a diamond outline, but that was an illusion. Landing bays to the middle, fore and aft, if you could assign such terms to something this big.
The power was obviously on, it was lit up like an extra star in the system. We were utterly dwarfed by it. The Stone Shark must have looked like some tiny child’s toy, if you could see it at all against the immensity of this place. No matter what, Starburn was right, there was a fortune to scavenge here.
I piloted The Stone Shark towards the smaller of the obvious landing bays. It looked like we weren’t the only ones here. There were dozens of ships docked. Some of them were obviously from other Independent crews like ours. Most of them had been here for a long time though. They were wrecks that had started to disintegrate, or passing ships would have stripped them. Either way it confirmed two things. First, this place was truly abandoned. Second, no matter what we encountered, we weren’t alone here.
Hastian’s zombies are usually easy enough to deal with, the problem is if they come at you en masse. Now we have to assume other crews are in that mix.
All aboard
I set the ship down in what seemed to be a stable part of the docking bay that didn’t have any other vessels in it. Scans showed that the station integrity fields were holding. There was grav, there was breathable air, there was light and heat.
Normally, you would never breathe the air in an abandoned station, however, we had some extra knowledge this time. First of all, the scanners showed it as clear, always a good sign. Second, according to Starburn, people have been here before and come back alive. Third, with the station’s power fully functional, the atmospheric scrubbers would be operating helping to keep the air clean if a bit stale. Fourthly, we knew the station wasn’t abandoned but quarantined. Given the presence of Hastian’s that seemed like the most likely cause for the quarantine. That’s a known quantity that we can deal with, and as far as we know, it’s not airborne.
Considering all that we reasoned it was safe enough to progress without space suits. At the first sign of airborne issues, we’d head back to the ship, decontam, revise our risk.
We geared up and assembled at the airlock. Believing the air is safe to breathe is no reason to compromise the ship’s atmosphere. Everyone was ready, time to go and see what all the fuss was about.
What an incredible smell you’ve discovered
First thing I’ll say is thank Sagblu for the air filtration system. If there hadn’t been, the stench from the corpses would have been horrifying. They covered landing bay. Almost all of them looked like original station inhabitants. White coats, lab gear, tech gear, they’d obviously been here a long time. Looking around it seemed like the first few independent crews had cleared the place out, or died trying. There was a ship with a trail of bodies up the loading ramp into the cargo hold. They looked like Hastian’s victims, but not all of them. That crew must have put up one storm of a fight judging by the bodies. Sucks to be them.
Nothing moved in the landing bay, other than us. Given the amount of carnage in here, I’d hate to see what the main bay was like. Regardless, we kept moving in the general direction of the interior. We didn’t have a map or anything like that, so our direction was a guess. I was hoping that there’d be some sort of signage around the place as we moved.
Directions
After threading our way through the corpses and the ships, we came to a door with a sign beside it indicating that the medical lab was through this section. Doc pointed out that there might be some useful gear in there, and since this was a research facility there might be some new tech lying around. Without any better option immediately available, we decided to head there.
Through the door and into a wide corridor. Easily big enough that two hover-stretchers could pass each other. Several of the lights were out, with others blinking in a random pattern. This place may be functional, but it was old and unmaintained. For a place this size, it was eerily quiet.
We reached the Medical Lab without too much difficulty. Everyone moved cautiously, but nobody was jumping at shadows. We looked through the door and it all seemed to be fine. It was looting time.
Stargrave is published by Osprey Games and was created by Joseph A. McCullough