User blog:404 found/Event Horizon

1300, Day 1037, Uncharted Regions of local galactic supercluster

The ISS Event Horizon, first ship of the Event Horizon-class Colony Ship, is stranded. The ship's SFS-1300 SubDrive has suffered a power overload, melting the drive and forcing the automated piloting systems to eject the ship into realspace. The ISS Event Horizon arrived near an M-class red-yellow dwarf possessing three rocky planets, none habitable.

The ISS Event Horizon is surrounded on all sides by debris of all forms, ranging from destroyed drone fighters to severed communications towers and sensor packages to scorched plasma autocannons and railguns. It would have appeared to the layman that the colony ship narrowly escaped a battle of epic proportions. The truth was that it has arrived in the remnant of one.

In the distance, nearer to the star that the ISS Event Horizon has stumbled onto, the debris concentration increases. In the center of this cloud of metal is what appeared to be a massive naval station. The ruins of immense dreadnoughts and battleships of various designs, ranging from simple wedges to elaborate organic shapes to geometrical quasi-fractals, can be seen floating around the station. The corpses of more capital ships are on the surface of the three rocky planets. The area is basked in a red-yellow light from the star, illuminating the graveyard of starships.

The Liberator, Artificial Intelligence Conscript installed within the ISS Event Horizon, is woken up from a long slumber. It rapidly assesses situations, and realizes that the SubDrive is inoperational. Unfortunately, the backup was destroyed in an earlier encounter.

The Liberator then does a preliminary scan on the debris field around it. Though resource and technology rich, it cannot afford to stay behind and inspect. The cargo of 100,000 sentients held within its six sub-sections are slowly losing their ability to live on much longer. However, the naval station is complete and from initial scans the naval station appears to be undamaged and unoccupied. The AIC decides to deploy a team to explore the station.

Soon, Liberator has awoken the 100 Shock Commandos within its special holding chamber and has armed and armored them for combat. The Commandos are clad in full body armor, with a helmet with a large visor covering the entire face. Their armor is black and smooth, with the exception of a white insignia of spokes radiating from a sphere emblazoned on their chestplate. Each of the Commandos are outfitted with energy rifles and plasma sprayguns supplied by Critical Mass Industries, a major military R&D company from the homeworld of the Commandos.

After a short briefing from Liberator, the 100 Shock Commandos set out on a shuttle (almost the size of a small frigate) escorted by half a dozen drone fighters towards the naval station. The shuttle is more of a strike landing craft, with ample missile racks and light plasma autocannons on its tritanium-reinforced hull. Its two stubby wings carries its missile capacity, and half a dozen interceptor-grade engines propel it at high speed towards the station.

As they approached, they can observe the words Naval Station Arcadia emblazoned upon the central hub of the station. The insignia etched into the hull next to the name is suspiciously similar to the ones on the armor of the Commandos. Liberator is unable to answer their questions, for it does not know why.

The shuttle lands on a small crafts platform, and the Commandos disembark. Immediately, they notice something amiss. There are several empty power packs and gas canisters scattered about, and the gravity plates are still functional (but the atmosphere shield is not). Liberator orders them forwards.

Starting from the landing pad (designated North), the Commandos move South through the only path until they turn left. Their path is blocked by a metal access door, jammed by bits of metal caught in its sliding mechanism. Next to the large door is a smaller metal door, ajar. A quick inspection reveals it to be a security checkpoint connected to camera systems. Though there are no signs of the previous inhabitants or their remains within, they extract a holorecording. It shows a small patrol squad standing near the access doors from earlier, firing weapons at full auto at the other side. This lasts for thirty seconds before the patrol squad abandons position, seals the doors, and makes a run for the small crafts landing pad.

Several Commandos are unnerved by this. Liberator orders them to copy the recording, before breaching the door and proceeding with caution. With a small amount of brute force, the access doors pop out of their frame and drop onto the ground, creating a resounding clang. One Commando swore that she heard the sounds of movement from deeper within the station mere moments after the clang.

The Commandos explore onwards, discovering the main crew area of the station. Rapid checks reveal that most of the rooms are in disarray as if recently abandoned, but all other signs point to long term abandonment. The Commandos obtain another evidence in the form of a holorecording by a camera that has fallen against the wall. There is no visual due to the lens pointing at the wall, but the heavy gunfire in the audio suggests that there was an attempt by the crew to resist some form of attack. This is corroborated by discoveries of a brownish red powder confirmed to be vacuum-dried blood of humanoid origin.

Further exploration in the area yields a small docked frigate (its SubDrive is incompatible, but the Commandos successfully power it on and prepare it as a backup escape vehicle), an Engineering section (the reactor is outputting power but the Commandos cannot trace its destination), and a storage room (where they discover a large hovercraft for transporting cargo capable of carrying them all, as well as backup fuel canisters). All that is left is a hallway connecting their section of the Arcadia from the next, stretching 100 meters across the vacuum of space. The polymerized glass of the large windows in the hallway are shattered, some displaying scorch burns from plasma and other more dried blood.

Activating the cargo hovercraft, the Shock Commandos move onwards.