The next day...

The Surface of Steinhull, The Steinhull ruins

Sinn'Are'Sen stands at the open entrance to a lift shaft and stares down into it's depths. The car is nowhere to be seen above or below and the shaft cuts through enough decks in each direction that his flashlight does not show the far end of the shaft. Sinn has no climbing harness or rope to hand, but fortunately there is a maintenance ladder in a recess on the far side of the shaft.

“Well, that's an interesting archaic wrinkle. No cables to move a car nor obvious sign of a magnetic rail for one to ride on either. Instead there are those columns of slots in the side of the shaft. They almost look like gear tracks.”

“An interesting observation, but how do you plan to get to the ladder to descend the shaft?”

“Remember that latest 'level up' I got? It came with some new Psionic incantations and this looks like the best opportunity to try one or two of them out.”

Sinn concentrates and lets his psionic power flow as he recites the incantation for Wall Walk. It activates smoothly on the first attempt.

“That's a tad odd. I've got Wall Walk active and... hmm, I'm still standing on the deck aren't I? Lets try shifting to one of the bulkheads...”

Sinn reaches his hand out to the edge of the open hatch and grips it. With a small effort of will Sinn marks it as the surface that he wishes to walk on and lets his feet lift up into the air until he is crouched on the edge of the hatch as though it were a narrow ledge. Satisfied that the psionic incantation is working Sinn tags the side of the lift shaft as the next surface and slides onto it. He stands up and turns in place, letting his camera and flashlight play across the shaft.

“That's a bit much Sinn. My risk calculations are going a tad berserk.”

“I have Float as a back up in case I fall. In the mean time I'm going to start walking down this shaft until I find an open hatch, a cab, or something else of interest.”

“And Float will halt your momentum if you fall?”

“I estimate a successful casting rate of ninety nine percent on Float. Better yet, it will slow my fall down to survivable levels instead of simply canceling out my momentum and stopping me dead in place. My leg bones aren't indestructible after all.”

“Snag some cybernetic upgrades and they could be!”

“I've got ten Republic credits to my name. Last I checked a pair of legs was fifteen hundred credits, not counting the installation costs. Or the time I'd have to spend off-mission to get them installed. I don't even want to think of the increase costs to secure good quality ones either.”

“That's an option for Citizens?”

“It's usually reserved for replacing lost or permanently crippled limbs, but you can save up enough credits and fill out the paperwork to have it done voluntarily too. I see a gap in the shaft, four decks down from my current position. That would put it nine decks down from the one I entered on.”

“I see it through your earpiece's camera. Looks like an open hatch to me. Planning to check it out?”

“Yup. Worst case is that it's a dead end and I keep going down the shaft. A few pore strides and I'll be able to see though the hatch... oh, yuck.”

“That doesn't look the the deck you entered on at all.”

Sinn pans the camera across the passageway revealed through the hatch. It is little more than a meter wide and two meters tall, though the top quarter of that space is fulled with hanging pipes, light fixtures, and armored conduits.

“Well, that looks like a maintenance passageway if the crawlspaces in your hull are anything to go bay Dara Tonn. I get the feeling that I'm not going to find anything through there except broken equipment. Useful for the RSC I suppose, but I'm going to keep looking for some kind of central damage control station or reactor compartment. Even an equipment locker will be more useful then the proverbial crawlspaces.”

“Agreed. Pan the camera around the shaft again? I might be able to spot another open hatch...”

“Can do. Their location is fairly predictable at least.”

“There's a break in the pattern. See how the hatch into the crawlspace is smaller? Moth of the hatches visible from your position are the same. The ones a further eight decks down are larger, comparable to the ones on the deck you entered on.”

“Alright, eight more decks down I go. Still no sign of the bottom of the shaft or a car.”

“Hold for a moment Sinn. I'm picking up something by running your video feed through edge enhancement software. We may have found a bottom to this shaft.”

“A bottom or the bottom?”

“A bottom. I do not doubt that this shaft once extended further but that tangle of wreckage blocks it off rather thoroughly. On the up side at least one of the hatches at that level should be open. I can see the hatch itself in the wreckage.”

“More battle damage?”

“Hard to say from here. Proceed with caution.”

Sinn walks down to the pile of wreckage and looks about for an open hatch. He spots one without much effort, navigates onto the deck plates past it's threshold, lets Wall Walk fade way, and looks up. He drops to the deck, Magma SM revolver in hand, in shock at what he sees. Three heartbeats later and Sinn begins to relax. A few moments more and he holsters his revolver with a sigh of relief.

“I think we can indeed mark down this debris to battle damage.”

“How so? There is no other sign of conflict within the Steinhull Ruins. A boarding action would have left this whole place in shambles.”

“Because those look a lot like heavy caliber autocannon and large bore energy weapons. All pointed at the hatch I just walked through.”

“Hmm, you are correct Citizen Obvious. But is it battle damage or something else?”

“Let me file the report and I'll let you and the RSC know why at the same time.”

“Ready.”

“Begin exploration log addendum.

“The lift shaft I chose to descend into the Steinhull Ruins is blocked by wreckage seventeen decks below the deck I entered on. At least some of the debris is from a hatch that has been shot open, along with what I think to be the remnants of a lift car. Stationed to guard the hatch are multiple security features, both fixed and mobile.

“There is a twin barreled large bore turret raised out of the deck plates in the middle of the passageway. It looks like it would sit flush with the floor and be concealed when not in use. Given the evident cables, scorch marks on the floor, cylindrical flasks, cooling systems, and heart vents around the muzzles I'd estimate it to be a large-bore energy weapon of some sort.

“Behind that and using it for cover are a pair of security automata or possibly the remains of individuals with heavy cybernetic enchantments. Roughly human sized and sharing the same basic morphology as a man, there is evidence of heavy armor plating, total limb replacements, and integral weaponry. Both remains have their right forearms replaced by a heavy autocannon, with an ammunition feed going to a backpack ammo tank. Judging by the muzzle and the scale of the spent cartridges on the deck, I'd estimate shells between forty to fifty millimeters in diameter. Case length looks to be two hundred fifty millimeters, probably a bit longer.

“Both sets of remains show battle damage. The turret face is liberally scared with projectile impacts and is pierced cleanly in at least three places from what I can see. The automata remains show similar damage. One is missing a head the other the majority of it's torso.

“Needless to say I will be proceeding with extra caution from this point forward.

“End exploration log addendum.”

“Clean copy.”

“Good. Now, let's see what warrants such a heavy defense. Single hatch then meters ahead. Blasted open by the look of it, probably by a high energy thermal charge if the slag on the deck is anything to go by.”

Sinn creeps forwards while panning the earpiece camera across everything in his line of sight. He approaches the hatch and pokes his head through into a large compartment. It is unlike any other he has seen inside of the Steinhull ruins to date. It is at least three decks tall, despite how that would cut up compartments and passageways above it. It was also at least three times as wide and deep as every other compartment Sinn had seen so far. Most oddly, it is actually square despite all of the other compartments being curved at least slightly to fit the ring passageways on the upper decks.

The floor is square metal tiles stamped with the bird and cog insignia as opposed to the anti-slip checkered deck plates common elsewhere in the ruined station. The bulkheads are ribbed with columns and ornamental arched bracers. The compartment is lined with low benches facing a central raised cube of metal with the gear and bird icon on each visible face.

Eight pop-up turrets littered the floor, each shot through or blown apart. The remains of dozens of security automata lay scattered across the benches. Blast and stray projectile impacts dent every surface that Sinn can see. The bulkheads are riddled with large holes from missed shots. Most are comparatively small at forty or fifty millimeters in diameter while others approach two meters in diameter.

Sinn sweeps the light and camera across everything without stepping further into the compartment to record things as they lay.

“Sky and stars. What happened here?”