The Surface of Steinhull, Research Black Site Ovaettr ruins

Sinn'Are'Sen blows out a long, exasperated breath.

“Apologies Funi'Happ'Sen. Outburst over, getting back on the path. I expect that you have a fuller briefing slated for my near future Funi'Happ'Sen?”

“Quite correct Sinn'Are'Sen. I can tell that you are just a bit occupied at the moment, so let's schedule a conference call for...?”

“ I've got an Aura of madness behind me and a probable exit in front of me... I'll need today to get out of here and back to Dara Tonn's hull, and probably tomorrow to and recover. Make it shift start the day after tomorrow?”

“Your shift or mine Sinn'Are'Sen?”

“Yours. I usually get up with local dawn so I can be flexible. Let Dara Tonn know when and we'll work it out on our end.”

“Sounds good to me. Funi'Happ'Sen out.”

Sinn pinches the bridge of his nose and takes several deep breaths.

“Dara Tonn, did you spot a hatch on this lift car while I was stumbling in circles?”

“No but there is the maintenance ladder that bypasses the lift car.”

“I'm an idiot.”

“Only some of the time. An unavoidable side effect of having a bionic brain: it's cross wired in so many interesting ways.”

“How far down do I need to climb?”

“Only one deck If the map is to be believed.”

“It has been so far. It's the station that's outright messing with the rules.”

Sinn crosses the top of the lift car to the maintenance ladder. He looks down the ladder to check for blockages before mounting it and beginning his descent. A few moments later Sinn is hanging off the ladder to look at the hatch on the far side of the lift shaft.

“Let me guess Sinn: Wall Walk over and pry it open?”

“Well I don't fancy my chances landing on a ten centimeter ledge after back flipping off of this ladder so Wall Walk it is.”

Sinn murmurs the familiar incantation and calmly walks along the walls of the lift shaft to the hatch on the far side. A few minutes work with the pickax had the hatch open and Sinn standing in the compartment beyond. Ten operating tables were arrayed against the bulkheads. Each of them are surrounded by an array of vitals monitors and auto injectors. A hemispherical pd of sorts sits abandoned in one corner. Noticeably absent are any sort of privacy curtains

“This doesn't look like a cryosleep facility.”

“It's not. It's another medical facility. The map we have has it labeled as 'cryosleep preparation compartment'.”

“I would have thought that any preparation would have been done in the medical facility one deck up?”

“Apparently not. Looking at the equipment listed to be in this compartment and the one above before the false men modified it the compartment above was for general surgery with an emphasis on 'intracranial implantation' while this compartment specialized purely in inducing hibernation slash stasis states in patients prior to cryogenic cooling as part of the cryosleep process.”

“Strange to see the steps spread across multiple compartments. The Republic has all of the needed steps packaged into one neat sleeping tube.”

“Perhaps the Empire's cryosleep and or cryostorage technology was simply not as developed as it is in the Republic? If the process was only just out of the prototype phase then the ability to monitor the 'sleeper' at every step of the process would be immensely valuable.”

“Makes sense to me. What is on the equipment list for this compartment anyway? I'd like to check if anything has been added or is missing.”

“per the list for this compartment: ten operating tables, ten sets of vitals monitors with bran activity sensor suites, and ten auto injectors.”

“Which means that that hemispherical device isn't supposed to be here. Let's take a look at it.”

Sinn walks over the the devices and looks it over. The dome covers an operating table with restraints and vitals monitors. The table is flanked by a pair of chairs, each with a seat harness to keep it's occupant secure.

“Looks like a medical transport capsule of some sort. What do you think Dara Tonn?”

“I think it would have a hard time fitting through the hatches. What do you think, three centimeters of clearance on either side? And how did it move? I don't notice any legs, treads, or wheels on your video feed.”

“Magnetic levitation I think. The deck plates are all metal, so it would always have something to push off from and pull on to move. As are the bulkheads if it needed to transit a lift shaft in an emergency. I can't imagine you would need much more then a seat belt unless this thing was designed to move at odd angles on occasion.”

“Sensible I guess, if an esoteric choice. But why is it here?”

Sinn shakes his head sadly.

“An emergency addition to the cryosleep array? Until and unless we can pull some sort of security footage or activity log for the station we will probably never know for sure.”

“Could it have been used to move you...?”

“I just don't know Dara Tonn. Possibly. None of the other cryosleep tubes were occupied when my adoptive mother found me. If so, was I stored away as an emergency measure? To keep me safe? To keep me hidden when everyone else left?”

“What makes you think that the inhabitants of the station evacuated?”

“Despite the signs of battle down here on the lower decks, there aren't nearly enough bodies on that habitation deck for there to have been a massed fight. I think the bulk of the crew was evacuated for some reason and a skeleton maintenance crew was left behind.”

“And that security detachment?”

“Guarding something that could not be removed perhaps? Or simply to protect the maintenance staff? Awful heavy for basic protection though.”

“Your speculation on guarding something that could not be removed or easily destroyed makes sense. If the Empire was planning to return to this station, something like the primary reactors would be essential to protect and maintain.”

“I just had a darker though about what it could have been Dara Tonn. You know how we both got pulled into this division within the RPC? The one that deals with all of the psionic stuff? What if psionic phenomena started appearing, and that is why everyone either evacuated or was 'possessed' by a Astral Veil predator? The way the false man in white was. Probably the way the false man in red was too now that I think of it.”

“And the battle damage?”

“A strike team coming in to clean up the mess. They certainly did a lot of damage, but ultimately I don't think that they were completely successful. Why knock out the thrusters keeping the station in orbit when you could set the fusion reactors to overload and turn the whole thing into a ball of plasma?”

“Presuming that your latest speculation is correct, then I would put forth the idea that something as critical as a primary fusion reactor or gravity generator would be too heavily defended to practically assault and then hold. A full platoon of security automata were deployed just to cover a single altar slash work station. Something like the reactor core would be an even tougher target. There could also have been psionic phenomena in play that blocked the strike team's advance.”

“Can't detonate the magazines for those huge cannons, Can't turn the whole station into free plasma via runaway fusion reactor, can't tear it to pieces via mistuned gravity generator, so hitting it with a planet is the next best option?”

“Something like that, sure. Special forces badasses or not, I can't image a non psion just waltzing through a reality erosion without their head imploding under the barrage of contradictory sensory information. That one you didn't even notice until you walked out the far side of is starting to small like a trap for the unwary.”

“Or they tried and got slaughtered. What if the power is out, the backup power almost spent, and the station crashed into a planet because it just ran out of fuel?”

“Calculating... That actually makes sense. A station this large could be counted on to not break up on reentry so using that method to destroy something buried deep in the heart of the station would be foolish in the extreme. But if the hypothetical strike team managed to cripple the false men before being driven back or killed, then the remaining occupants of the station would not have been able to keep up with maintenance or mount refueling operations.”

“I hate to say it Dara Tonn, but speculation isn't getting me out of here. The cryosleep bay where I was recovered is on the far side of the rimward hatch of this compartment correct?”

“Correct. From there there are further passageways that will lead to a surface exit form the station. I estimate thirteen hours of walking from now to get back to my present location.”

“Good thing I arranged to have tomorrow off then. My legs are going to be jelly by the time I get back.”