Chapter 2. The Grey Gorilla

Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed. - Neil Armstrong Katrina, Tim, Erik and Lucav enter through the hatch on the 3rd deck. As the enter into the Grey Gorilla proper, the are in a T-section type of corridor 3.5 meters in width and 10.5 meters long. At the end of the long side of the corridor, there is a pressure hatch with a keypad on it. Straight ahead of them its another hatch. This door also has a keypad. The only difference between the steel doors at the long end and this one is that there is a small view port about head height. This area must be on low levels of power. The ship's lights are very dim and soft. It seems to amplify the shadows around you.

Nothing on the scanner? Normally a living ship is flooded with radio waves... Erik makes his way down to the view port, making a educated guess on the door's password as he does so. (Computers + gut feeling, 4 successes) Confident that he can get the door open, he leaves it be and simply peers through the view port for now.

Kat made her way through the ship, to where they'd docked with the Grey Gorilla. Following what the Captain had said, she'd stopped to slip into her COG, a standard version of the second-skin like suit of space armor, as well as grabbing her pistol, a heavy model GIC HOP. After donning that, she got to the air lock, where the rest of the senior crew members were. "Hope I'm not too late to the party," she said, joining the others at the as yet to be opened door.

Venyia lugs the medi pack bags onto her back and hip pouches and they mag fit into her COG, supply info loading into her NIS. She finished briefing Hector who is to remain at the hanger deck air lock guarding the entrance to the Righteous Indignation but also ready to receive casualties or be jonny-on-the-spot with supplies. As she walks into the docking connector everyone is looking tense and Lucav looks set to storm a bunker. “Hey soldier-boy, and everyone. I know we’re feeling a little hokey on this, everyone knows a story about an E&R mission in the black. But let’s remember this is an aid gig ok? We’re here to help…. Lets try not shooting on sight ok? You do, you’re buying me replacement kit.” She joins the boarding queue and despite her words she stands out of line of site of the doorway and unfastens her holster.

Hey, I haven't opened anything yet, and I won't, not til I know what I see through the window. Be patient and wait for blakk.

Tim stands near Venyia and watches as Erik makes his way up to the door of the Grey Gorilla. "Shouldn't there be, like, somebody... anybody... here to meet us," Tim says a bit too loudly from the back. "I thought this was supposed to be a rescue and repair," he says gloomily to Venyia, "not a salvage." Tim nervously fingers the trigger guard of the pistol and tries to control his breathing. He switches his Z-GE suit's visor to X-ray and begins scanning behind the door not sure if he wants to find something or not. [0 Successes] The visor's X-ray capabilities go fuzzy for a moment as Tim tries to focus them. "Damn old suit," he thinks to himself as he tries to make minor adjustments to get them back into working order.

(Please don't put actions on my character. I check this 3-4 times a day, you won't be waiting on me.)

Looking through the small viewing pane, Erik can see that their are two additional hatches in the room. They are solid themselves, but instead of a keypad they appear to have a typical code scan reader. More than likely tied to a utility or embedded in a COG's systems. There is little to see in the room, there appear to be safety goggles along the left most wall in relation to his view. On the right, there appears to be a row of emergency rebreathers as well as simple dust masks.

"It looks like there's nothing in here, just some unused emergency equipment. This will probably be the way to engineering. Wish we had a ship plan." With that he opens the hatch and slips through, looking for any system terminal he could access.

Going in, you dont find much in here beyond what you say through the small window. There is a fine layer of powdered dust on the floor, there is no telling how long it has been since it was swept up. You do not find a terminal in the room at all. Other than the equipment on the walls, it appears to be a small passageway to the two hatches you see and a staging area for this emergency equipment.

Lucav is proceeding with the group into the passageway. Once they do move ahead that is. His gun is not aimed at anyone, but since its so in-cumbersome he had to hold it at the ready in both hands in front of him. (Thought of a back sling for this thing, but Sniper rifles of large calibers are notorious for being too long.) Lucav was trying to use his Motiondetector in his HUD again.

The motion detector nets you little information. You are only getting the pings of your squad for now. Your small section of the ship seems to be empty so far. (i forgot to mention, updated the map with what you all can see)

" I've got no motion on the scanners for now. Shall we proceed?" Lucav sees if the rest of the squad was ready to go.

Veniya gives a Gallic shrug,"Yeah, there should. If their VIN is down though, they wouldn't even know we're here until we knocked. They could be sleeping it out until help arrives. Don't worry you'll be up to your eyes in power system shit soon enough." She looks at the way Tim is handling the weapon. " 'Ave you ever fired one of those things?"

"Zut alors. open the door already. We're getting old back here." She waves her hand impatiently at Lucav. "Vite, vite!"

Seeing that a yes from the majority of the squad, he activated the key panel entry switch. Waited for the door to open.

((Jared, my wording was meant merely to convey you guessing the password, nothing more. Sorry if it was confusing. I made an edit since I guess I wouldn't actually know you were guessing anyway.)) Tim nods with little confidence. "My brother took me once when I was about sixteen. He always had a knack for those kinds of things..." Tim's voice trails off realizing they are about to start moving into uncharted territory.

She looks a little sideways at the engineer. "Um, ok good, well, short of..." she was going to say ' short of a Ripper ' but thinks twice for once, "...don't point it at anything."

Erik goes to the other hatch and tries putting in w/e authorization code SES gave the crew(if there is one). If that doesn't work/ there isn't one, he'll make another code breaker roll (that's computers & gut instinct Brett)

(which hatch, you have one to your left and to your right)

I guess I'll go left.

The door starts to slide open and grinds halfway to a halt. The screeching of metal on metal creates an echo into the large passage. The room is almost pitch black. The lighting from over head is 10 meters high and very faint, as if a trickle of power is getting through. Without your flashlights on you wont be able to see more than the length of your arm ahead of you.

Erik checks his pockets and realizes he left his flashlight in his locker. "Lucav, you've got a flashlight, right? Take a look in here. The door's jammed up on something." Erik steps out of the way, and pulls his pistol out of its holster, checking to insure it's on safe.

Lucav pops his head up when he hears the metal scrapping on metal noise. He looks over to Erik to see if he is ok." Anything over there?"

Almost talking to each other at the same time, Lucav reaches into his belt, and pulls out a small but very powerful flashlight. Tosses it to Erik. "Here, also if i where you keep it at almost the same level as your hand gun as you walk." Lucav flips on his flightlight on his helm for his COG. He normally didn't use the light, but seeing that the element of silence was shattered it was pointless for now. He moved forwards so that he could add his light to Erik's as they scan the near area. (Making a search roll using Motion Scanners again)

Erik flicks on the flashlight, then gets low and peers through the hatch, staying out of the way of Lucav's rifle. He plays the flashlight around the room, trying to figure out what's inside.

Kat took a spot near the near, with the other not so much soldiers. Standing near Tim and Veniya, she waited as the crew started to move forward onto the other ship. A cringe took her face as the metal on metal sound shot back through the corridors, she looked forward to see if anything was happening. Not hearing anything bad after the sound, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Right, careful as we, go, slow and steady wins the race, da?"

(1 success; will wait for Blakkmonk to tell me if i see anything before i proceed.)

I need you to walk into the space first, Leon. All scanners are at a -2 dice pool for use. also, your COG's come with a shoulder mounted flashlight on them. It is detachable but its standard on every COG I will need all of you to position your tokens and move them. Consider each post as a chance for movement if you wish. You may move up to your normal distance in movement. the scale on the map is correct for range

Lucav moves into the space, the darkness is cut briefly where ever his shoulder-mounted light is shined on. ( i guess we can pretend that Erik just told me to help him shine some light in this direction. For now then). Beyond 30 to 40 feet became very difficult to see, but he moved cautiously and silently since he was in the lead for scanning things.. also cause he had the largest weapon with them, and didn't want to shove that thing in any friendly's back.

The room Lucav entered, and the door was opened by Erik was very dark, and very large. The shadows cast on the floor and walls were long and menacing looking to the untrained eye. His flight light was swung from one direction to another as he scanned the room. A sense of eerieness could not be helped to felt. " Does anyone know where the light panel is in this room?" He attempted to look around for the nears bulk-head with a light panel.

(we can go with that, Jared, I was moving Erik and Lucav back and forth, and had Leon make a move so I can adjust the lighting part a bit. You should be in position now) Lucav cannot see anything for lighting strait ahead of him, he will need to look further in

Lucav does spot a computer terminal link up

Spotting the terminal, he patches into his COG's intercom. "Erik, you may want to take a crack at that thing. Do you think you can restore anything through it from here?" Pointing out the terminal to Erik.

Erik walks over to the terminal and attempts to power it up.

( I will put you up to Erik's move. That way you can look around before moving forward more)

(Ok. I'll be at a comp in 2 hours)

“Merde. “, she says hushed in response to the blacked-out section. Veniya’s military training takes over as Lucav and Erik look ready to sweep into the corridor. She raises her hand to Tim and Kat, “Wait for the guys to make sure it’s safe.” She’s not about to storm in, she is the medic after all, but she can support the others. She moved up to behind Erik, one shoulder to the metal door and pistol held low, she lightly touched him on the shoulder to let him know her position. When he moves in she takes up his position. She leaves the torch off for now as she only intends to peek around the door.

"Don't have to tell me twice," Tim says quietly as he drops the toolbag. It hits the floor with a dull, heavy thud. Tim starts to rotate his arm around, loosing the stiff muscles from lugging the thing around.

Kat nods, resting against the wall near the door with her and Tim still. Everything seemed to be fine still, calm was good. "Anyone else up for a drink once we're done with this? I could do with something to forget the creepy atmosphere."

The tension relieving line brings a slight smile to Veniya, "You buying?"

(just to clarify cause due to the light, no one saw my character.) Lucav had entered the door way, and turned slightly left. There off a bit further to the left and along the corridor between some columns of machinery Lt. Lucius saw a computer terminal. (thats up to where i stopped by order of Blakk, and waiting for Jared's PC to see if he can activate anything.)

Kat gives a smile when the doctor responds. "Sure, there's gotta be something on board that can do the trick. Once we get paid and stop off somewhere I'm sure I can score us something better," she says, looking back to the doorway to the Grey Gorilla. It seemed almost like the quiet was making it worse.

(Assuming there's power to the terminal) Erik fiddles with the terminal momentarily, checking for viruses & such before pulling up the ship's logs and attempting to activate the ship's VIN. (5 successes, gotta love that max +2 dice pool) Once he has the data and is sure it won't infect LOTUS, he transmits it to the Righteous Indignation. "Here ya go, boss. Ship's logs transmitting now."

"Hey, Erik... can you see about some illumination in this area or throughout the ship?" Looking around Lt. Lucius was trying to figure out where they were exactly, and to see any signs of the original crew of the Gorilla.

Erik straightens up and looks around. "Not at hand, no. There's a hallway I'm facing though...wish I'd noticed that before I hunched over the terminal here. Come up here and cover me, I'll try to pull up a ship schematic."

The ship logs start to transmit back to the Captain. (Amy, you will need to read/view them to learn anything. To do this quickly, it will be a Gut Feeling+ Administration roll) The automated light selection for this area is offline. Erik cannot select if via the ship's VIN. The light panel may possibly be jury-rigged by someone with engineering skills. The basic ship schematics start to flow. It is noticeable that you are getting only the baseline product. There seems to be damaged sectors on the ships computer. You are unable to pull down the ships manifest and current displacement or engineering logs. They appear to be localized and not on the open network. Erik suspects ( based on your skill roll) that they are locked in combination with a local bio-metric key. It can be hacked, but not remotely. (The ships schematics are available as a handout in the campaign area.)

Erik transmits all of this to the ship. "Tim, you're up. See if you can get this light panel working."