The Dead Ship - Chapter 5

 

Once again Carl's notes were way better than mine.  I just made a few edits for punctuation and clarity.

Continued from The Dead Ship - Chapter 4

Location: Outer Gas Giant in the Querion System, Querion Subsector.
Imperial Date: 082-1100

1300 Ship Time

The Skylark was parked at the 'top' of the Haunting Thunder, manned by Sam Penney and Medicus, the air/raft tethered at about deck 31, and the away team of Kipenzi, Leon and Fig still on the fighter bay deck, we are set to start the actual retrieval of the fighters that we came all this way to find.

Careful investigation and exploration have found only two of the RF-128C fighters, both with some damage and fortunately both on hangars for convenient maneuvering around the repair and flight bays.

Leon does a more complete examination of the tracks used to move the fighters are about, and gives us the thumbs up (OK, I am pretty sure it was a thumb...) and using the four lifters we brought plus the 15 ton lifter that we had found here we can get them both into the Skylark.

 Maneuvering the fighters to the cargo bay door as Skylark descends, attaching the lifters and the cable from Skylark itself (we really want to avoid watching 15 Million slip and sink into the ammonia sea) we transfer them both after dumping the cargo we brought as a cover story.  The first transfer was uneventful, the second a little more 'interesting' but both are ensconced in the cargo bay, with one centered on the forward cargo door and pointed outward.  We are hoping that the weapon can be jury-rigged into a state of usefulness on the jump out, just in case we need it.

Mindful that we have more space to fill, the away team makes a more thorough investigation of the rooms on the flight bay deck, and we find some medical equipment, repair and spare parts for the fighters, some tools that bring a sparkle to Leon's eye, additional VACC suits and some survival gear.  Most noteworthy at this point is that we have found a heavy duty cutter, suitable for opening the door on the Running Bridge (one door eluded our investigation previously, and we hope to find some key information or items behind it).

After the maneuvering of the fighter craft, it appears the Haunting Thunder is oscillating, or possibly settling into the sea, so about 1800 ship time we all take a much needed  and well deserved break from the action for food, rest, refurbishing the VACC suits, and to observe the Thunder for a while.

Noting the ship's position hourly, it looks like just oscillation, making a return for further exploration possible.

083-1100  0800

Rested, ready and cautious above all, the away team suits up for one last walkabout.  Armed with two charged-up heat shooters, the drilling equipment that will (we hope) allow us to see what is behind closed doors, and above all caution (NO more encounters of the frostbite kind, thanks for asking).   Noteworthy also is that the Skylark has gotten perceptibly colder overnight; the super-cooled metal of the two fighters is leeching our heat and will ultimately (perhaps soon is a better word) overwhelm our ship life support capabilities, so what we are going to do on the Thunder really needs to get done this time.

Our decision (not without grumbling, but still...) is to:

    1. Go back to the Running Bridge and open the locked door, and grab whatever we can, plus gather up all the things we left stacked by the access tube.

    2. Check out each level from the lift tube, and if the level has not been breached (we will notice a puff of air) and we can feel fairly secure that we won't get ambushed by a pack of space herpes ( taxonomically spacus herpus frigidus).  Ideally we will find the armory or even more so the purser's office.

    3. Note the names, or at least faces, of any other crew members we encounter. Somewhen along the line we have decided that one way or another we are going to get the information that this ship is still around to the Navy, just make 1000% sure there is no direct string back to us, but also that if we ever need to show it was us, we can.

We went back to the Thunder's bridge deck and the first thing we do is to strap the guns and equipment down on the lifter, so if something goes wrong at least we'll have that.   Next Leon starts drilling the armored door, and after a few minutes we can hear a small whistle of atmosphere entering the room on the other side. Shortly afterwards, the door is loose and we are faced with what is probably the main computer for the Haunting Thunder.  Sadly, there is nothing particularly retrievable that is worth the effort.  At least we know what it was.

Down the decks level by level, checking the atmosphere as the door is opened fractionally.

Deck 22 - Deck 34  Either no access to the deck or fuel tanks

Deck 35 - Mixed atmosphere, oxygen, nitrogen and methane.  Explosive. Left this one for later.

Deck 36, 37 - Breached

Deck 38 - Dead Marines and the frozen watch. We get all names and/or faces on film. One holdout party group had a poker game going.  Party animals to the last.  Call looting just what it is, but 9000 credits is still 9000 credits.

Deck 39 - 41   Breached.

Deck 42 - 46   Power plant areas, damaged.

Deck 47 -  Sealed, placard indicates gunnery, and while our hopes for rifles and handguns soar, it is one of the main gun decks.

Fig says "Too bad we cannot take one of these to replace the lost turret."

Deck 48 - 56   Fuel decks.

Deck 57 - Gunnery deck.

Deck 58 - 65   Fuel decks.

Deck 66 - Main weapon deck, controls for the Thunder's spinal mount. We took two laser rifles from the dead marines at the guard station.

Deck 67 - 68   Breached.

Nowhere else to go, except back to Skylark.  Maybe there is an armory, maybe a pursers coffer, maybe they were both in the decks that are gone.

Or maybe they were on one of the breached decks. - Terry

Back on the ship about 1400 ship time. We pick up our beacon and put back the original, making sure that none of our fingerprints or DNA can be found on it.  This is done with the long-term idea of getting the bodies and frozen watch back to the Navy.

So, time to get out of here and make our way back to Vilis. Fig and Sam calculate the jump into Attica, and we start flying toward the north pole, hoping we can find a way up through the clouds and turbulence.   After many hours we can see a band of weather that seems to consist of a forest of tornadoes with lightening flashing like stobe lights that stretches from horizon to horizon.  Flying parallel to it for several hours and suited up for safety, we find what appears to be a gap several miles wide that leads up.

As with the descent, so goes the ascent... hammered by turbulence, and then by large pieces of ice, when we finally make it above the troubles we have a whole new hole in the ship.  Oh well, it's just money....and lives....maybe....

Once above the atmosphere Leon, Fig and Kipenzi patch the breach inside and out, and we vent the cold methane in the cargo hold into space, taking considerable stress off the life support system.

At the end of this trip, some of our funding has got to be invested in some accelerated pilot classes, hazardous flight training, or something like that for Medicus and maybe one other... All is well with forging certifications and training documents until the document isn't enough.

084-1100   1200
Patches in place, time to rest some.

084-1100   1700
Noting the latitude of the 'clear' band just in case we come back, time to jump, and this time the calculations are spot on.

091-1100   

In the Attica system, refueled with unrefined fuel from the spaceport. Spent three days processing the fuel, stayed alert and planed our jump to Retinae.

094-1100  1800
Fly off and jump out to Retinae.

101-1100  
Good arrival here also, down into the water and processing.

105-1100  
Jump out to Faisal.

112 -1100 
Into Faisal nicely, more water. Nice to not go to ports, peaceful, quiet.

115-1100 
Jump out of Faisal for Dekalb.

122-1100  0600
Into Dekalb. Monitoring communications, we learn that there is more trouble than usual on Entrope.   Good thing we aren't going there.

125-1100  1500
Calculations complete, we jump to Winston.

132-1100   2300
The Skylark came out of hyperspace at the usual 100 planetary diameters out from the gas giant in the Winston system.  Not detecting anything on the scanners, we headed in toward the gas giant to refuel.  Shortly afterwards we hear across the Comm:

"Halt and prepare to be boarded"

 

Continued in The Dead Ship - Conclusion