"Ae, since when has anything about this mission been typical?" Bright asked the only other blond woman she had the utmost respect for. But from the moment that Aeos had shown up everything that should have been typical had suddenly become not so typical.

It was sheer force of will that had kept Brightstar conscious. Mentally she was kicking herself for attempting the repair that had caused her current predicament.

----------------------------------------

"I almost got it." Bright said her head bent in toward the repairs of the hyperdrive unit that she had been attempting with RK's help.

Thats when everything went wrong. A spark in the wrong spot at the wrong time and then.......

BOOM!

----------------------------------------

Bright hadn't even felt the impact of the shrapnel in her eye over the feel of the flames lashing at the right side of her face. Her first reaction had been to close her eyes and place her hands over them. She could feel the burned flesh around her eye and knew that her eye was gone. She hadn't even noticed she was screaming until she had felt firm hands wrap themselves around her wrists.

Of course her luck had brought Karash to her side instead of RK's. She'd sworn vehemently at the medic to check RK first. Her last sight of him had been at the moment of the explosion and she didn't know what had happened to him.

----------------------------------------

"Check, Ryan, Damn you!" The red head yelled through waves of pain. She swatted at the hands trying pull her hands from her face.

Finally Karash pulled away with a huff. "Havock, check her." He called.

Still with her hands covering her eyes, Bright felt new hands on her wrists. Havock was making it clear that she wanted to see what was wrong. "Damn it, Rain let me see." The squad leader said.

Bright growled and gave up. She opened her eyes and focused on Havock. Don't move your eyes, Bright. Focus on Ayame. Bright thought silently. She tried not to blink. Her biggest and most unsavory shock came when she realized she couldn't see out of her right eye. It was enough to make her want to start screaming again, and she would have if Havock wasn't kneeling over her looking down at her.

----------------------------------------

Bright felt herself shivering as they continued to wind further into the vessel's heart. Her stomach rolled and she knew that it would rebel soon. She was dizzy, and half blind and she felt as though she was walking funny. She also felt like crying.

"Lets hurry, Bright's going into shock. And I would rather not be holding her up when her stomach decides to rebel." Karash said to the others.

"Well then I will be more than obliged to vomit all over your shoes, Karash." Bright snapped.

"Enough, Brightstar." Havock said from behind the senior sergeant. "Don't make me order Karash to sedate you."

Bright shutup, despite her pain and discomfort, she didn't want to be sedated. She felt she deserved this pain.

"Here it is." Aeos said from in front of her. Bright looked up and stifled a whimper. The slightest movement of her head sent a wave of pain so strong that it threatened to knock her to her knees. She would be happy to just sit down again.

“This place hasn’t been used in years.” Decembrist noted as he swiped a finger of dust from the counter on the far-side of the medbay.

“If it was used at all.” Aeos continued as she studied unopened satchels of equipment staring back her through a semi-reflective glass cabinet.

“We need to get out of here.” Decembrist said with a darkened edge wedged into his usually lightened tone.  He was worried and she could understand why. The biggest threat was the one that couldn’t be seen, read and analyzed or even acknowledged and they both sensed the presence of such a threat right now.

The med-bay was gently yet ominously illuminated with light panels which would subtly dim away whenever the ship’s sensors concluded no presence in the area that needed light. For it to be so acutely aware of them yet not respond to them was eerie. Aeos shivered and moments later a soft flow of warm air gushed across her from one of the ventilators in the wall.

Around them, all the members of the squads were all occupying themselves with inspecting the vicinity of the med-bay while waiting on Havock’s orders. The Squad-Leader had returned very shortly after leaving deeming that a bigger scouting party was needed. She couldn’t risk splitting the group into three teams spread across a ship of which the layout was foreign.  Instead she had ordered the squad into the med-bay which they would now establish as their base. She wanted concluded bios on RK and Bright before leaving again and was now at this stage attending to RK and Bright, or rather hovering around them as Karash attempted to attend to them.  All previous arguments in the squad have been forgotten for now. It could be dealt with later it has been subconsciously decided.

Skarr’s hands slid over the flat untextured surface of the left wall. The space here was remarkably big and unused prompting him to investigate the lack of evidence of this. 

Aeos crossed the med-bay back to where Havock was standing. The woman at first glanced suspiciously at Aeos’ approaching presence. She couldn’t deal with another attack if this is what Aeos was about to do. But she trusted the woman to not indulge herself in this pleasure for the moment.

“Havi, we need to get of this ship.” Aeos whispered.
Havock nodded.

“I suggest, that we send a scouting party to search for some escape pods of some sort or something before-“
A soft yet firm gender-neutral voice suddenly interrupted the squad’s thoughts, amplified somehow through unseen speakers and in fact, Aeos couldn’t even pinpoint whether she was hearing the voice in her thoughts or from where it was originating in the room.  It spoke in a foreign language she had never heard in her life but she did manage to catch one or two words from Basic.
Skarr jumped back from the wall he had been investigating. It had illuminated itself in a soft blue hue whilst vibrating as the mechanisms in it prepared to open.  The whole squad tensed at the wall and backed away from it forming a half-circle while raising their weapons pointing at the opening wall.  The voice had stopped.

“Did anyone understand that voice?” Havock inquired raising her weapon as the wall continued to open. A bright light was blinding the details contained in the opening gap however.
“I caught like one or two words.” Aeos muttered.
“Language?”

“Basic.  Its words that hasn’t been used in easily nine hundred years.” Aeos muttered. She was an avid reader interested in the world around her and its history.  Language and literacy of easily five-thousand years ago easily survived due to the continues re-production of text which contemporary scholars studied to understand the current evolvement of Basic. She had briefly dabbled into some of these books but they had bored her endlessly and so she gave up. 

Havock squirmed.

Nine hundred years?

“That is impossible Aeos. This ship doesn’t come near the technology they had nine hundred years ago.” She responded in disbelief.

A soft whirring soft emanated from the opening wall. The squad squirmed and held their ground. Something was coming out. But there was still too much light. If only it could lessen a bit.
It hovered.

Aeos stared at it in disbelief.

Hover technology?

It had the same sleek untextured surface as the wall Skarr was inspecting earlier.  It had no head but only existed as one solid shape with arm like extensions that dropped past the bottom which didn’t touch the floor either. What Aeos assumed to be the torso started out wide at the top which then narrowed into a stump towards the bottom. It was pure white with no seems of plates jointed together to form it. If she didn’t know anything better it had been created in one form. 

The voice had returned this time though sourcing directly from the object in front of them.  It continued babbling in the same foreign Basic dialect they had heard before as it stared whirring forward. The squad tensed but it was nonchalant as it stopped in front of Havock.  For a moment everyone held their breath and their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.  One of the ‘arms’ rippled suddenly as it in a fluid motion extended to reach to Havock. 
“Skarr take a shot.” Havock ordered softly not moving. Ordering the whole squad to let loose might end up in her death. A chance she wasn’t prepared to risk.

Skarr nodded and curled his finger.  The bolt from his weapon flew accurately at the foreign object and much to the surprise and utter horror of the squad dissolved bare centimeters from the thing’s frame.  Skarr shot at it again instinctively. Again the bolt gently dissipated into thin air. The thing didn’t seem to notice the unfriendly attention however and was still approaching Havock who now violently backed away.

“Havock….I think it’s a droid.” Mai intervened.
“A med-droid?” Aeos asked.

“Possibly.”  Decembrist said as they studied the slow movements of the droid which was still following Havock around peacefully as she was scrambling away. They couldn’t risk going in a shoot-out with Havock in line of fire.

The droid stopped suddenly before slowly turning to the beds where RK and Brightstar were located.
“No!” Havock mumbled numbly.

OOC:

The bot is harmless and it will continue to speak in a foreign dialect. It is friendly however and has no ill intentions. It cannot be damaged by our weapons.

‘You had to jinx it didn’t you? They were all going to leave you alone with sleeping beauty and you had to say “one of you will be back soon.” Now they are all in the medbay whilst a strange medical droid goes about its business.’ Karash was going through his usual self summary of events, whilst the other RAIDERS continued doing whatever it was they did.

When the medic had once again joined reality, he found that the droid was standing in front of Skarr having presented him with an analysis of Bright and RK’s condition. Karash was not sure how to react to this, on the one hand he had always been the squads’ medic and it was a position he did enjoy, despite what he may say. On the other hand his squad mates never listened to him and Skarr’s temporary appointment as ‘head medic’ could be a nice relief.

“Uh, Skarr, I think it believes you are the head medic.” Aeos spoke in jovial tone.

“Of course he does.” Karash huffed, the sudden realisation that other people realised this caused him become even more annoyed than he normally was.

‘The impertinence, how could it believe that Skarr was the medic? If it was not for me most of these people would be dead right now! Oh but I forgot that it’s not skill or training that makes you a medic, it whether or not a freak droid decides you’re worth...’ Karash’s thoughts were interrupted.

“Karash take that weird look off your face and get over there.” Havock ordered.

The disgruntled medic walked over to Skarr and snapped, “Well what did it say?”

“I don’t know.” The trooper replied blankly.

“Well that is useful, was it in a language we could understand?” Karash asked impatiently.

“Nope, not a word”. Once again Skarr spoke simply.

Karash huffed and babbled slightly before turning to the squad leader and speaking, “Bright is fine, well half blind but otherwise fine and I will check on RK now if it makes you feel better.”

As the medic began to walk over to the unconscious trooper, the interfering med droid blocked his path and once again spoke. No matter what Karash would say or do, the droid would not let him reach RK; with every second that passed he was getting more and more annoyed. This continued for a few minutes until Karash let out a loud huff and walked back over to Skarr.

“Looks like you’re up smart stuff.” Karash hissed at Skarr.

Karash was not really angry at Skarr, he just felt that he was no longer any use to the squad and therefore felt useless. So until someone could work out what was going on, Karash would just have to accept he was not needed.

While the rest of the squad was conversing, trying to make head of their current predicament, Aeos was studying the small medbot. Was it her imagination, or was this starting to speak in a more coherent format similar to Basic?

“Skarr, Karash…I suggest you two stay here when we go out to inspect the rest of the ship.” Aeos suggested while glancing at Havock for an approval. This was her squad after all.

“That thing I think is capable of learning. Keep speaking to it, and don’t speak the load of shit you usually babble on about.”
“I resent that Aeos.” Karash said darkly as he glared at her murderously.
“Well, if Aeos’ suspicions are true, it’s worth a shot and either way, we need people here to guard RK and Bright.” Havock muttered in agreement with the Captain. She shifted the rifle on her shoulder to a more comfortable niche in her neck and gestured for the squad to get ready to headout.

They have been on this ship now, for four hours at least. And still, no sign sentient beings or anything for that matter save the little medbot. The ship was active but at the same time dead.
Wordlessly the squads save the injured and Skarr and Karash stayed behind with their new AI companion to talk with.

The ship was sleek and smooth in its design, both on the exterior and interior. Sleek to the point where Aeos had difficulty establishing the colour the walls were or whether she could even recognize the materials used on this ship. They have been edging down hall-ways now for the past hour, not yet encountering any form of life whatsoever. Mai had been decided to be their ‘mapmaker’, and she was instructed to keep sense of their current location and direction. Such a task after all, to the feline was only instinct and natural.

“Shit…how big do you think this thing is?” Decembrist asked through gritted teeth as he glanced around nervously?”
“Scared fool?” Aeos asked smugly.

Havock sighed and closed her eyes as she murmered quietely to herself, most likely starting a prayer for sanity.
“Hah! No,you must be confusing me with yourself dear.” Decembrist said cheekily.

The Squad fell silent again after this interval and continued to walk through the numerous corridors.

“It’s weird…” Mai started softly, “we haven’t encountered a single door or room so far in all this space.”

Havock frowned and nodded. She had noticed it too. Along with the silence. The lack of action and stress scared her more than anything else. The fact that nothing had obstructed them so far freaked her.

“Well maybe there are doors we just don’t see.”  Havock muttered. 

She stopped the squad’s movement and together ordered them to spread out along the wall of the current corridor and try and search for an activation mechanism like Skarr had found earlier.

The hum of the dormant ship was starting to give Havock a headache. The entire ship was eerily in a state of cleanliness, which she could only assume was due to droids similar to Skarr's new friend in the medbay toddering along following ancient protocols. 

She ran her hand slowly along the smooth walls, her mind racing as she attempted to concentrate on the nonexistent imperfections on the surface. What was this place? She had to keep asking herself over and over again. Havock had loved ships and vehicle designs her whole life, yet this one was like nothing she had ever seen before.

"Mesa no likey this place." Grahim didn't have to speak for everyone to know he was nervous, the gungan looked twitchy as hell walking down the narrow corridor.

Aeos rolled her eyes and pushed her way to the front next to Havock. "Do you even know what you are looking for?"

"Do you?" When she got no response, Havock turned to the slightly shorter woman. "Everything that moves has an engine, ignition switch and steering device. So far we've found a medbay and docking port, none of those have the three things it would need to move. Since we have established its not a barge, we keep looking."

"Ayme that was almost...logical."

A glint of something caught Havock's eye and sent both of her hands to the wall to feel for an opening. "Yea, well try not to sound so surprised."

Her fingers fell into a small groove on the otherwise smooth wall. Visually there was nothing there but she continued to poke at the opening something poked her back. "Ow, geeze." She could feel several rows of small barbs sticking out in a circular pattern, something was familiar about it. "Its...for a droid."

"So we need a droid to open the door? Anyone have a droid in their pocket?"

"Helpful Vee, really." Havock grimaced and kept feeling around. "There should be a manual over-ride."

"Keep that up and you're going to lose a finger." Aeos muttered with little emotion in her voice.

Still feeling down the grove, Havock rolled her eyes. "Call Karash, just tell him its Monday."

"Ha, what you always get injured on Mondays?" Mai hissed from a defensive position behind her.

The squad leader smirked as her fingers touched a round button which she knew had to be the over-ride she was looking for. "No, just pick any day of the week. He would say it didn't matter I would get injured on all of them." She pressed the button and stood slowly as the door swooshed open.

A puff of stale air hit Havock in the face making her wince and turn away. The stench was more than just a lack of proper ventilation, it was tinged with old blood. The lights flickered on as she took a tentative step into the threshold. The sight before her sent every warning alarm in her head to ring on full volume. Her hand gripped the pistol in her right had so tightly she was sure it would break.

Her brain attempted to put the pieces of body parts thrown around the room back together to form bodies and count them, she managed to get to three before her other hand grabbed her stomach to will it to settle and not vomit which would only add to the unpleasantness before her. The room was a barracks at one time, with bunked cots along the walls and a rec table in the center for card games she supposed. It was strange how she almost forced herself to see the inhabitants going about their normal routines rather than the state someone had left them in. Her eyes slowly trailed upwards where she could confirm that the blood spatter did indeed also paint the gray ceiling with a speckled burgundy.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump so fast a shot rang from her pistol landing in one of the larger chunks of flesh in the room, which looked like it used to be a torso.

"Ayme, the comm." Aeos looked at her skeptically with just a twinge of concern, although she knew that was directed more at the fact that she was mentally preparing to take over rather than worried for Havock's mental health.

She nodded and clicked the button. "-ock, something is wrong. Do you even turn this thing on?"

"What is the problem Karash? Are Bright and RK alri-"

"Yes they are fine, its me thats having the issues." Havock raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. "The supplies, everything, its covered in b..o....d.." 

"What the frak?" Havock alternated hitting the comlink against her palm and calling for Karash.

"A fully trained vehicle crewman and you still think hitting things will fix them." Aeos shook her head slowly as she stood watching the squad leader with her arms crossed over her chest.

Havock bit her lip and slowly let the static filled device drop back to her pocket as her eyes turned to Aeos. "Remind me why I keep you around again?"

Aeos shrugged. "Beats me. We should keep moving, this doesn't look like the cockpit either."

"Right." Havock glared but knew the other woman was right, which only infuriated her more.

OOC:

Continue towards the cockpit/bridge-type place.

They had been wrong to assume nothing after the first hours. To assume that they were safe. Because, they were not.

“Havock, droids here are starting to go hay-wire! You are regarded as intruders.” Skarr reported in a frantic voice tone through the comm.

Havock’s frown continued to deepen as Skarr continued his report. Her eyes widened.

“Raiders, move!” she ordered.

The squad surged forward down the corridor. In the faint background their ears caught the soft sound of rapid whirring. No matter how fast they pushed themselves, the whirring kept increasing.  They made a sharp left and veered right again hoping to throw the droids off, but to no luck. These things and the ship were properly connected. Either way, the droids knew their away the ship and Raiders didn’t.

Colourless walls and corridors sped past them but it was the same blood filled rooms which were no opening. The ship was finally starting to wake up, and it was starting to scare them.
“In here!” Aeos muttered. She doved into a door that suddenly opened to their left and the squad followed in.  It was cold, eerily cold.  The whirring of the oncoming droids have suddenly stopped. Havock and Aeos risked glancing outside the doors. There the droids stood. Motionless yet active the droids regarded their life forms with cold undetected eyes.

“Why aren’t they moving?’ Aeos asked softly. She was confused. And she was scared.

“I don’t like this room.” Decembrist said firmly as he glanced around.

Mai ignored the clown next to her and concentrated more on the room around them.  The room was unnaturally cold.
“It feels like a fridge in here.” She muttered as she crossed the space to one of the walls. The rest of them followed her example while Aeos stood guard and they started patting the walls again hoping to activate something again.

The same strange  airless voice they had heard earlier activated again. However, this time they managed to catch quite a good few Basic words in his speech. The voice deactivated after one minute.
“Amazing.” Aeos whispered.

“It teaches itself a new language with a few hours after hearing us.”

Mai jumped back from the wall lithely and landed on all fours. Her eyes fixed on it. She had activated a mechanism. Slowly the same bright light from earlier appeared while a rectangular tube was being pushed out the wall. The temperature of the room dropped drastically.

“This room is a morgue.” Decembrist muttered staring at the body through the glass. It was old and it had been dead for a couple of hundreds despite the fresh appearance of the clothes.
“This whole ship is a morgue.” Havock muttered white-faced.
“Why would a ship be carrying dead people though? Not just a one or two, but a couple of thousand if not more.” Decembrist asked.
“Because when they boarded the ship they were not dead. They died on the voyage. Look at this thing, doesn’t it remind you of carbon freezing, just the wiring and the cooling system? They were put to sleep, and meant to wake up at the next location.” Aeos rationalized.

“But something went wrong during the journey, and they died.”  Havock finisged.

“You’re logic is correct Captain Aeos.”

The grip on their weapons tightened. The AI voice continued its dialogue now in fluent Basic.

“During the voyage, we encountered that one of the patients had been infected with a virus. We had meant to do a peaceful extermination when we woke him, but by the time we had subdued his life form, he had woken at least a hundred fellow passengers. We are not allowed witnesses to our actions and we subdued their lifeforms as well.”

“And the rest of the people?’

“That Sergeant Major Havock is niaat vof ror…..”
The voice suddenly continued babbling in a gurgle of basic words, the literacy programming seeming to fail on his sensors.
“Something else happened to this ship that he is not telling us. “ Havock muttered.

“Something bad.” Decembrist continued.

“Skarr, the ship recognizes you as our medic. You or Karash will need to come and get us. These droids will kill us if we step outside this room, perhaps you can get us out.”
Havock turned to face them.
“The faster we get off this ship, the better chance we stand of getting home.

OOC:

Meh, I will continue the rest later tonight hopefully, someone feel free to post however.