Cath

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“The least I can do is cover them…” Light warbled. He gingerly rolled all three of the bodies onto their backs and crossed their hands over their hearts. Then he removed bedding from the bunks and draped them neatly over the top. He left their eyes open, mostly because he couldn’t really detect if they were closed or not.

He cast an eye forlornly about, considering whether to scavenge around. In the end though, he hefted his Bangstick and turned for the door. This was taking too long; he needed to find that manifest. He was going to proceed to the cockpit, on the lookout for the owner of the fourth bunk.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light’s breathing became more pronounced as he slowly approached the powered door. “That’s odd. This room is powered but depressurised. I didn’t see any issues here externally; maybe they suited up and left to-”

He opened the door and startled at the bodies, sticking to the ceiling and flashing bright to distract predators. When nothing moved, he slowly detached and floated into the room. Rather than being a low billowing cloud, his suit looked more like a floor-to-ceiling pillar with a much smaller floor footprint. This was to avoid touching any of the detritus littered around the room.

After a tantalising pause over comms, Light tried to narrate his situation.

“Nevermind. There are, ummm, two bodies amidships. Wait! Three bodies.” He eyed the third body huddled in one of the bunks, multiple apparent stab wounds in their back.

“All of them without suits and signs of radiation, one with stab wounds. Looks like we’ve had an unintended depressurisation. What a mess… I’m going to check the bodies.”

Light drifted closer, intent on carefully checking the corpses for clues and/or the manifest.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light pored through the mess inside the store room. When he found the integral cupboard open he rifled through, emptying everything else out onto the floor.

“Hmm, looks like some did attempt repairs somewhere. Just not in the most important room on the ship.” He mused, heading back out into the corridor.

Light briefly considered searching every room on this floor for more intel, but ultimately decided against it. They needed to keep their eyes on the prize, and if finding the manifest would help with that he resolved to focus there first. If the captain had a copy, it made more sense to search the crew areas first - which were downstairs.

“Ok, heading amidships.” Light billowed back to the ladder running through the decks and plunged down with his Bangstick at the ready.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Got it, thanks.” Light’s swollen suit billowed lethargically along the bottom of the corridor as he headed towards the stern. The Bangstick’s stock was carefully oriented away from his body so as not to deliver devastating recoil if he had to use it at short notice.

He traversed up the corridor, checking the door panels as he went. None off them appeared to have power. He stacked up against the wall next to where the hall bent right.

“I hope you’re not waiting for me to get down there and fix it for you.” He joked. Steeling himself, Light put a feeler subtly around the wall until the suit could transmit an image of down the next section.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Hey! That’s what I meant! Stupid translator…” Light grumbled, cutting away with the laser.

When he was satisfied with the opening, Light stuffed some gel from his suit into it to scan for threats inside. There were higher levels of radiation, but nothing he couldn’t handle for a few hours. There were no angry life forms in the reactor module, at least.

“Reactor module is clear, going internal.” Light reported. He swapped the laser cutter for his BangStick and fed that through first. Then he contorted with the rest of his suit to slide into the downed freighter.

“I guess we’re not flying this out of here any time soon. The reactor is totaled. At least it looks like the backups aren’t in here. Smart really…” He murmured, shotgun protruding about six inches from the front of his suit as he did a cautious lap of the room.

“I can’t see any signs they tried to stop it happening. That’s a little strange, right? Hey, easy!” He protested as the cargo door slamming shook the ship.

Light circled back and peered through the wall at the burst tank. He shrugged eventually and examined the rent to the right of the exit door. For some reason the cilia along his spine stood on end. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

“Door is totaled too, moving out into the gangway.”

Light squeezed through the gap, shotgun whirling round in an attempt to cover any avenue of attack.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light thought for a moment, resting on top of the ship.

“The hull is dead quiet. I say we enter through both and meet in the middle. We may even find more valuables this way. Besides, I’m intrigued by this meltdown now. Sound good?”

He fired the industrial laser cutter and a red lance buzzed into existence. Light lowered it into the widest hull breach.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Check the cargo bay doors. Look for an external power source port; maybe we can use that fancy new power supply of yours to operate the mechanism.”

Light floated surreptitiously along the ship, examining a few of the modules. The joins between these modules were weaker than the walls, but there didn’t appear to be any obvious damage that they could exploit. Then he whirred off the ground and up onto the top of the ship.

“Eureka.” He said over comms.

In the centre of the ship at the top, the hull was breached in multiple places by some kind of explosion. This must be the handiwork of the reactor core, load shedding after a massive hit of radiation.

He edged closer and peered inside. It did appear to indeed be the ship’s primary power plant. The breaches weren’t big enough to fit through, but they could be widened. Light ejected the laser cutter from inside his suit and powered it up to begin cutting through.

“Multiple breaches top side. I should be able to make a hole we can fit through. Have you found anything, Senjen?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“I accept that.” Light bowed solemnly, seemingly in the zone for their upcoming endeavor. He had clipped a utility belt to the outside of his suit, but some of it still floated inside his suit with him. His suit was deliberately blocking his skin’s bright colours, so the others would have to rely on the translations his suit provided instead.

QV night vision was excellent and Light was no exception. Even on the dark side of this moon he could soon make out details of the craft as they approached. He looked for any signs of forced exit or entry but found none. The hull seemed mostly intact, though there was a lot of debris in the wake of the crash.

“Check, mic. No signs of EVA. Will you stop hating me if I carry you in my suit?” He turned 90 degrees to look at her while still progressing forward.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

After considering it carefully for a minute, Light brought them in gently to land in the crater nearby. It would provide a bit of protection and make the ship a little harder to spot.

“What? Time to put that infinite stamina to the test! I can bring it closer if we really need to.” He explained when he caught Senjen looking.

Once post-flight checks were complete and the ship was patiently ticking over ready for a getaway at any moment, Light set up a regular automated scan of the field around them and a dome of open space above. Any intrusion should ping his implant immediately.

He then gathered up his gear from the collection of lockers dotted around the ship. A pry bar, laser cutter, large scissors, that type of thing. Heading to the cargo hold, Light pulled his trusty BangStick out last before getting ready to open the doors to the vacuum.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

A technicolour kaleidoscope swept across Light’s skin as Jess pieced it all together. He bobbed and nodded furiously, actively listening to every sentence.

“Mhmm, yep, my thoughts exactly!” Light chirped, floating surreptitiously closer towards Jess until he was clasping her shoulders and lightly shaking her.

“There’s only one way to find out. Let's go see!” Light appeared oblivious to the worry in Jess’ voice. He flung himself at the controls and began the intensive process of scanning the planet’s surface.

It ended up only taking an hour or so. Light focused their sensory array on the ship to look for any signs of life. “Get ready, Senjen, this could be a rescue mission.” He asked simply.