Session 2: What did you do to my ship?!

After returning from their mission to locate the distress call out by Ory, the crew of the Siren's Song discovered that several weeks had passed compared to the several hours they had experienced. Seemingly, time passed differently while they were caught in the anomaly.

Syncing their time codes back up, the crew decided that the Siren's Song needed repairs and resupplying before they could head back out to explore the derelict they had stumbled upon earlier. Ivan Popov was able to leverage a contact who just happened to be at Redemption at the time to assist with expediting the repairs and in very short order the Siren's Song was fully repaired. Faye Jefferies didn't have the same amount of luck when trying to resupply. For some reason that she didn't bother to try to understand, demand was much higher for common provisions than the supply on hand on the station. Eventually, she had to leverage Corey Thorn's assistance, which he provided - but not without the cost of a promise for a future favour in return.

Once fully repaired and provisioned, which took only a few days, they set a course for the coordinates of the derelict. Upon arriving, they quickly determined that the main hangar had ample room to land the Siren's Song and proceeded to do so. After donning their EVA suits, Ivan, Faye, and Jayce Audric disembarked and began to assess the situation in the hangar. Beyond the broken doors that swept a large portion of the ship's complement out into space, the other most notable feature inside the hangar was that there were blood splatters throughout it. The crew immediately set to work trying to determine the cause - specifically whether there was evidence of weapons fire. They found two different signs of potential weapon fire. One was various scorch marks throughout that resembled the type a standard laser pistol/rifle would cause. The other was numerous examples of small, nearly micro, impact marks in the metal surfaces. The crew wondered aloud if someone had been using primitive projectile weapons that used an energy source to launch small metallic projectiles at high speeds.

Finding nothing else of interest in the hangar itself, and anxious to explore the rest of the derelict, Faye offered to explore beyond one of several doors that lead from the hangar to the interior of the ship. Jayce offered his assistance in formulating a plan of best action and began to consider the various doors, their position and orientation relative to the exterior features of the ship, and the general layout of other similar ships he was aware of. Not waiting for him to finish speaking, Faye and Ivan moved towards one of the doors, which slid open automatically, and revealed a de-pressurized corridor beyond.

Not realizing that Jayce had not followed them, they continued down the corridor to the left. It seemed to hug the exterior of the ship and had regularly spaced viewports all along the exterior wall. As they slowly, cautiously, made their way further along the corridor the light from their helmets eventually brought into view two bodies laying on the floor. They approached apprehensively and knelt to investigate. The bodies had been torn apart, and dropped to the ground here. Something large must have done this. There were also small pit marks and holes in the metallic and fabric parts of their clothing, respectively. As Faye tried to look more closely at these she caught sight of nearly imperceptible and sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She rolled sideways to try to avoid whatever it was but still felt a small impact before her EVA suit began to emit a warning about possible breach. Whatever it was she saw, it seemed to have impacted her suit and damaged it. She would need to keep a close eye on its integrity and the amount of time she might need to return to the Siren's Song and safety should it fail.

Meanwhile, Jayce looked up from his musings to realize the others were gone and that he had no idea which way they had gone. He decided to climb the stairs to the catwalk that overlooked the hangar so that he could get a higher vantage point and try to spot them. Unfortunately, he leaned just a little too far over the railing at one point, trying to crane his neck as he thought he had heard movement, and he fell over it, landing in a corridor outside the hangar itself. Seeing no door nearby he was forced to begin carefully moving along this corridor on his own in an attempt to reunite with the rest of the party. As he moves further down this corridor he begins to feel a very low frequency vibration through the connection of his mag-boots to the metal floor. It leaves him feeling nervous and he hesitantly continues forward until the very edge of his suit's light falls on a large, hunched form shambling down the corridor towards him. It it walks on two feet, but has unnaturally long arms that end in large bony protrusions that look like giant clubs. These drag behind it along the floor; the cause of the vibrations. Thinking fast, Jayce scans the corridor for a hiding place and spots a utility closet a few short feet ahead. He scrambles forward, ducks inside, and closes the door quietly behind him; hoping perhaps futilely that the creature did not notice his light.

In the other corridor, Faye and Ivan realize Jayce's absence but decide to continue forward figuring that Jayce would have simply returned to the Siren's Song when they got separated. Moving beyond the savaged bodies, they continue down the same corridor until they spot steam, or gas, billowing from the ceiling ahead. Slowing to determine its source, and ascertain whether or not they can safely pass through it, they realize that some ship's system must be balancing pressure as there is an emergency valve in the ceiling here that has opened to relieve pressure in the pipe that runs through it. The onboard sensors in their EVA suits indicate that the gas is harmless, so they press forward through it. Several more minutes of corridor pass before they come to an open space that crosses the corridor. This open space extends several levels up, and several more down from where they are, and stretches beyond sight in both directions. A bridge spans the opening and leads to more corridor on the other side. Making sure, first, that the bridge seems sturdy, the two cross it and come to a door just beyond sight of their initial position on the other side of the bridge. As it slides open they see that the engineering section is on the other side, and that they have specifically come upon a control room of some sort. Stepping over the threshold and eager to see if they can find any clues as to what happened to the derelict, they fail to notice a cable has come loose and a live wire is touching the metallic, grated floor. As their mag-boots make contact with the floor in the control room, both receive a jolt that might have killed them if not for the insulation of their EVA suits.

Back in the closet with Jayce, he is repeating under his breath, "Don't find me, don't find me" as the door to the utility closet is nearly ripped off its hinges and he comes face to face with the creature. Realizing he's no match for it, he thinks quickly and dives between its legs, turning himself as he slides across the corridor, he kicks off the far wall with his feet and slides back the way he came; deftly he grabs hold of the door and manages to slam it shut and have it jam in its frame due to the damage the creature caused in opening it. Jayce quickly gets up and runs down the corridor in the direction the direction the creature came from. Shortly, he comes to a door that slides open as he approaches. On the other side he sees a control room and the familiar figures of Faye and Ivan. Just as he is about to rush in to greet them, they warn of the situation with the floor. Carefully, they are able to reach out and lift the cable from the floor so the expose end of the wire is no longer touching the metal. They secure it to prevent further danger and then together make their way deeper into engineering.

Beyond the control room they find a room filled with storage tanks. Judging by their flickering status monitors they are pressurized and their contents are what were being exhausted from the relief valve Faye and Ivan had encountered earlier. Moving past this room they soon come to a corridor that transitions them into an production section of the ship. They find that they have arrived at a full scale mining platform, complete with hoppers, conveyors, loaders, etc. Many of the hoppers are filled to the brim with various types of rocks and ore. Several are substantially less full, and upon further investigation contain much smaller pieces of rock and ore than the others. As the group contemplates this difference, they see a number tiny pieces of the substance detach and suddenly shoot at great speed towards Ivan. Ivan is unsuccessful at diving out of the way and is injured as several of the pieces puncture his EVA suit and pass straight through his flesh and muscle. Clearly, whatever this material is, it is unstable, volatile, and likely at least partly to blame for the demise of the derelict ship.

The group agreed to move on before anyone else is hurt by this material. They make their way uneventfully for a time before transitioning from the production facility to an operations section of the ship. More specifically, they find themselves in a small brig with a handful of vacant cells and table with a chair next to it and a bound book on top of it. Looking more closely they find that the book is actually a handwritten journal. Thumbing through the pages, however, they discover something truly surprising! All of the dates are several years into the future until the last few, which are dated in the current year and only a few short weeks before the Siren's Song first encountered the derelict. In the front of the journal is the name of its owner, a Mae Hadley, and an indication that this journal is one of several in a series and that it covered a period of several months, except that those several months occurred several years from now, if the dates are to be believed. Looking more closely at the last few entries the group learns that this person had specifically come to the derelict, which they name as the Raven's Call, in hopes of averting something. However, the ink is smeared over by blood at that point in the passage and they cannot make out what it was the person wanted to avert. Jayce and Ivan turn to Faye, knowing that she has shared previously that she has the uncanny ability to shift forwards and back through the stream of time. Faye nods, but explains she can only do this within the bounds of a second or two. She has no knowledge of anyone else that can even do that, let alone jump by years. Feeling that they don't have time to read through the entire journal at this point, they tuck it away so that they can read it at leisure when back on the Siren's Song.

Moving forward again they eventually make their way to an auxiliary hangar. Unlike the main hangar, this one houses land-based vehicles like transports, rovers, and mobile hoppers for moving ore that has been mined planetside. As they are passing through a blinking light on the console of one of the rovers catches Jayce's eye. He stops to investigate and discovers that it is a notification of receipt of a communication. However, the message is encoded. Opting to press on, but being curious, Jayce downloads the coded message to his suit so that he, or more likely Callahan, can try to decode it later and see what insight it might offer, if any.

The group next passes into a section that houses living quarters. There they come across a communal lounge and find that one of the many displays that likely once provided entertainment for the lounge's patrons, is now cycling through what must be a security feed. At one point it stops briefly on an image of a cargo hold and inside that hold the group can see milling about a number of the creatures that Jayce had encountered. The count themselves lucky to not have stumbled into that hold unawares. Beyond the lounge they find a storage area - communal storage for residents' belongings that did not fit into their individual living quarters perhaps? Wondering if they might find anything useful or valuable in the lockers they attempt to search them but find all of them are locked.

As they contemplate trying to use force to get into the lockers, an unfamiliar voice comes over the ship-wide comms.

"Attention to those aboard the Raven's Call. This is Commander Luna Sato of the Rubicon. You are conducting an illegal salvage and are subject to arrest. Cease and desist, and turn yourselves in immediately."

Jayce, used to dealing with bureaucracy at its worst, responds, "There was no claim marker on this wreck, and under whose authority do you make these claims anyways?"

The response is swift and tinged with impatience and anger, "The authority of the Savage Conglomeration. Now, stop what you are doing, you are under arrest."

The groups exchanges looks. The Conglomeration doesn't hold authority within the Nimbus System, despite holding it over most of the Marred Maelstrom sector. Jayce replies again, convincingly, "The Conglomeration does not have authority in this system, the Immaculate House does. You have no cause and no authority to take us into custody."

After several tense moments of silence, it seems that Jayce has been convincing as the woman on the other end of the comms responds, "Very well, I concede that this is not Conglomeration space. However, we do hold jurisdiction over the sector itself. In the interest of maintaining relations with the Immaculate House, you will be allowed to go free, but not without first submitting your identifications, and the transponder codes of your ship to me. Should you find yourselves in Conglomeration territory in the future, you would do well to remember that we have you on record as possible persons of interest."

With that, the group decided to cut their losses and agreed to the Commander's terms. They provided the necessary information and boarded the Siren's Song and set a course back to Redemption. At least they still had the encoded message and the journal. But they also now had many questions as to what would bring the Conglomeration out to this derelict, what the deal was with that strangely unstable material in the hoppers, and what on earth those creatures were and why they were on board a mining sh