Fwurg

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

Nebesnogo read the data pad that T'sal had decrypted for them and frowned.

"I think that dis device was used to make some of the environments that were described in this data pad. I agree with Trigiel on not liking to be your garbage man."

Then he remembered something Shebi Ajava told him about the status of hemetism. "Nor are we a benchmark to test how strong hemetism is when induced into other creatures."

He moved in-between the professor and the door so the man could not escape. "Don't make me think that levelling this place is the best option." The little mudry looked less than pleased.

[Brend]

Professor Dewa Karinth looked confused when T'Sal suddenly started talking about chimeras and subject 2-7.

"I don't know what you are talking about", he replied, "As I told you, we have two running projects. The rice project and the insectoid chimera project. And as you requested, I have told you all about those projects while we flew to the facility. I'm not sure what you want from me."

Just then, Trigiel snatched the datapad from T'Sal, and started reading. As his demeanour changed, the professor started looking more and more confused. As Trigiel turned toward the scientist, his eye glaring red, the lone veolian man backed away from the angry cyborg until he stood with his back against the wall.

"I don't know what you are talking about. I know of no subject 2-7, or of any donors or terminations." From the corner of his eye, the professor saw Nebesnogo move to cover the exit. Sure that his fate has been sealed, the professor fell to his knees, shaking in fear.

"Please!", the scientist shouted, "Please mighty Jedi, please don't kill me!". It seemed that the rapid accusation by the three Jedi were immensely intimidating to the professor.

As he looked up at Trigiel, he continued with a shaky voice: "I do not know anything about hemet occurrences, I don't know what this subject 2-7 you speak of is, or whether it has brothers or sisters. I know nothing about cleaning crews. I am just a Dewa, I oversee the projects at this facility, I have no influence on any of the policies or executive decisions, the Iaat do that. Please spare me, I'll try my best to help you uncover what has been going on here!"

With the professor begging for his life, the Jedi had a decision to make.

[Fecta Trigiel]

Seeing the professor like that, Trigiel started to feel some pity for the man, it looked like really feared for his life. The headlight of the cyborg turned to a more light blue colour. "Poor man, what kind of boss do you have that you fear for your life? We are jedi, I am even a teprogrenus, we don't kill unless we see not other way. The first combat rule of my people is even: Never start the fight." Then the cyborg turned to his comrades, "apperantly the Iaat have some serious mismanagement here, if even the head scientist is not aware of the science what is done around here. We will talk about that when we are returned. Lets first settle the issue here."

If Trigiel recognise what the NICU is, he said to the mudry: "Oh and Nebesnogo Sveta, that device looks like a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. On Dhiahamara we use such devices to keep babies alive who came out their sacks to early. It is also used for most other species, like humans or veolians I think. logically it is used to keep creature 2-7 beta alive till it could survive on its own."
((Check: 9 = 4 Force Level + 4 Reason + 1 Medicine -- To check whether Trigiel recognize the NICU or not.))
If Trigiel does not recognise the NICU, he says nothing about it.

Then Trigiel remembered what was told earlier in the mission: The soldier at the base said that Iaat Vyapar would keep some information away sometimes, Dewa Karinth, the scientist, did research to hemetism, but has achieved harmles rice and powerfull wasps to combined genetic material. The scientist had convinced the Duke to download 'some data' ass well. The commander had send two scout parties but they both failed, was the commander Iaat as well? Trigiel wasn't sure but he thought so.

"So what I conclude at this moment is the following: This lab is to research hemetism, as the the facility has been taken over by Iaat some time ago, there has been some changes in management, there are two possibilities here: the first is the doc is left out of the big things intentionally for some reason, Duka Iaat Vyapar knows all about this and he is to blame for the facility going bad.
The second is subject 2-7 beta is one of the red ant wasps subjects, but due to genetic research it is quite different. As this a standard research procedure the doc was not yet informed about this. However this raises more questions: What is the deleted project, why is it deleted and what is all the deleted data? Logically I would go for option one for now leaving us to the case: what to do now?"

Trigiel thought for a moment, before to continue: "Dewa Karinth, what is this data you so desperately want to retrieve anyway? and is all the data stored at the central server? Maybe we can find more about the deleted project and the species 2-7 and his brothers.

It looks like there are no enemy soldiers, only some escaped baus-creatures but lets keep our heads clear and look out for strong and fast insectoids. Also maybe some soldiers are left and think we are enemies or looters, so we have still to be careful."

Then suddenly Trigiel realises something else: "Dewa Karinth, this facility was in hands of house Dewa in the past, but was then taken over by house Iaat, as I have heard. How did this go and does house Dewa has anything to achieve if this research go wrong?"

[Brend]

Recognizing the NICU for as advanced medical equipment, Trigiel informs Nebesnogo of its purpose.

The professor crawled back up, visible shaking. "If you don't start a fight, why did you try to block the doors, and threaten to blow up the facility?", he asked with a shaky voice.

"House Iaat bought the facility during the establishment of the Dryatech consortium. They brought in a lot new scientists and other personell, and started fixing up cluster Gamma. I know nothing of any projects going on there, they said they were just retrofitting the labs for a later project."

"The data I wanted to retrieve are the formulas for the growth enzymes of the rice. We recently discovered a way to double the yield of rice, and if it can not be retrieved it will be lost... When bio-containment fails, the usual fall-back plan is orbital bombardment, destroying the whole facility.", the professor seemed to recover a little from his fear, though he still kept a worried eye on Nebesnogo.

"Yes, all data is stored in the central server. Data from every research clusters is sent there periodically for backup and cross-referencing reasons. It will be difficult to find though, when house Dewa ran the facility, the servers were ordered by research cluster, cluster Alpha for rice, cluster Beta for the insects and cluster Gamma was idle.

But under the Iaat, all servers have been upgraded, making it impossible to track what data is stored where -- unless you could somehow got hold of a direct server address, but they say that's impossible. Maybe it's best if you bring me to the central security station, we can review security tapes from there, and the server rooms are located next to them."

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

Nebesnogo was taken back by how the professor reacted.

"I'm sorry I was harsh but I thought for a moment that this place was making super soldiers or monsters." he landed to make him self look less threatening.

"I was in the belief that this place contained things that had better not be researched and let loose on this world."

[T'Sal]

“Dear professor, we are Jedi no Sith. We are here to bring justice and peace. And YOU can help us in this investigating to find out what is going on and be a witness. I would really like to get to the bottom of this as I don’t like illegal/unethical experiments.

The great question is indeed who knew what? The scientists are dead so we cannot ask them. It is not curtain that laat Vypar knows anything he might just be a messenger. Commander laat Kinsara must know or at least suspect more as they take care of escaped creatures. But for the real answers we need to get to the security center and server room. Luckily, I did get hold of an server address on the datapad so we can find more information on this subject 2-7.”

With this T'sal moves towards the door. On her way she picks up the kitten pillow and looks for some paper to wrap it and then puts it in her shoulderbag.

((OOC: Most labs have enough paper tissues/paper so assume that it will be no problem.))

[Fecta Trigiel]

"Great, let's go to the security room.

By the way, I believe Vyapar is a duke, and if I am getting their, strange. system, the duke finds himself more important than the commander, making that Vyapar would know more than Kinsara. Right Karinth?"

Looking at T'sal taking the kitten pillow, Trigiel wondered were T'sal would need that for, and asked as such: "T'sal Why are you taking that pillow with you?"

[T'Sal]

“I am taking it as evidence, I think it is a good idea to do some extra tests on it as it while contain DNA and maybe more of subject 2-7.”

S4 has taking samples during his analyses of the room, but some things will need further investigation. The pillow would probably take up all the space left of her bag and maybe still stick out, but that did not bother T’sal.

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"I agree trigiel lets continue and find out what in the world was going on here."

he follows the group and keeps a eye out for danger.

[Brend]

T'Sal could easily pack the pillow into her backpack; after all, it was a small pillow intended for baby.

The padawan led the way towards the security centre through dim and silent tunnels. Every once in a while the lights flickered a little, probably due to the heavy thunderstorm outside.

Arriving at the security centre, the padawan quickly gained entry by slicing into the keypad. The security centre consisted of a large two storey hall, with a raised palatform in the middle. On the platform, the security systems processing core could be seen, lighted in unflickering blue light.

"The data centre is through that door", the professor pointed at a door opposite the side they entered the hall. He wanted to continue speaking, but a chirping noise from one of the security consoles on the raised platform interrupted him. The noise was accompanied by a holoscreen that angrily glowed red.

Upon close inspection, the Jedi discovered a body near the red terminal. A female soldier wearing the same uniform as the soldier when they entered the facility.

The screen showed a very low-level text interface:

?> secutiry override data-centre
Unknown command 'secutiry'.

?> security override data-centre
Security override: Access denied: L4CB Physical lock-down in effect.

?> syslog --lastEvent
Replaying system log of last event:
[t64h16.0] (Level 4 Containment Breach)

[t64h16.1] Immediate L4CB protocol activation...[ok]
[t64h16.2] Activate Security System stand-alone generator...[ok]
[t64h16.3] Activate Emergency Distress Beacon...[ok]
[t64h16.4] Lock-down of critical sectors...[power failure]
[t64h16.5] Activation of internal defence grid...[power failure]

[t64h16.6] Cascading failure. Escalating to manual control.

?> forcefieldctrl activate gam_

It seemed she was in the middle of entering a command when she was killed.

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel looked at the glowing console, but couldn't really get a grip on it: "Security override fail, sys-log, hmmm, according to this log, there was indeed a power-failure, but the generator was powered up, we could look into that. Wait, internal defence grid power-failure ass well? That would explain the amount of escaped chimera's commandar Kinsara was talking about. But then why didn't she knew this? We would have to ask that later.

forcefieldctrl activate gam... My guess is the soldier tried to activate the force fields around the gamma sector of the complex. Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

And L4CB... L4CB, L4CB, no idea what that means. Living 4 Creature Beta?

Doc, what can you say about this? because I have actually no clue what this console really tells us. I don't even get the time schedule of the events."

While they walked through the hallways, Trigiel already noticed that everything was awefully quite, and here was nobody ass well: "Dewa Karinth, what are the contamination failure protocols? I have seen nobody. I think I should have expected abandoned hallway's, but there aren't even bodies, not that much anyway. All the personnel should have gone somewhere, and it is not towards the soldiers outside, otherwise they would have known what has happened here."

[T'Sal]

T’sal had expected some more resistance in getting to the security center, but they are in now and that is good. Taking a good look around T’sal is interested in the red terminal and the central security computer. As Trigiel already asked for professor Dewa’s help at the red terminal T’sal goes to a console of the central security system. She wants to see the old video’s and see what happened during and after the attack.

((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 5 Intuition + 1 Slicing -- Get access to security video's and data))

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Sounds logical but I think the professor knows best about that." Nebesnogo responded to Trigiel.

"Then I will keep an eye out for dangerous things. Cause its to quiet around here." he suggested before he started looking around. ((Check: 8 = 4 Force Level + 4 Vision -- looking for things that seem out of place.))

[Brend]

The professor followed Trigiel to the console, where he read the output as well. "How about 'Level 4 Containment Breach'? That can be abbreviated to L4CB."

"The contamination failure protocols... It depends on the severity of the breach. Level 1 and 2 require evacuation of the contaminated lab, level 3 requires an evacuation of the research cluster, and levels 4 and 5 require a full evacuation with immediate lock-down, the only difference between 4 and 5 is the lock-down delay -- a level 5 contamination allows only 60 seconds of evacuation.

The routes used for evacuation are dynamic, and are determined by an algorithm with parameters to avoid contaminated areas and such. You should be able to find the current evacuation plan in the system. Usually, the algorithm directs the evacuees to a large hangar or other location with good transportation. Of course, with the power failure, I'm not sure everything went according to plan."


Meanwhile, Nebesnogo was looking through the security centre, looking for clues or markings. He did not really find something of immediate use to the Jedi, but he did find a few cups of coffee and a notepad that just lying there as if everyone just left in a hurry.


Arriving at on of the consoles at the security core, T'Sal let the force guide her actions. Just as it appeared she hit a dead end, and the system was going to lock her out, an inspiring idea popped into her head that gained her limited access to the security footage. Assisted by advanced security monitoring software, and taking her time to browse the records, T'Sal found three interesting video streams. It seemed many more streams were available, but she was denied access.

The accessible streams were archived. They are records of a lab in cluster C, a stream of a security station in cluster B, and the stream from the security camera in the Auxiliary lab the Jedi passed through. T'Sal just had to hit the 'play' button on any of the records...


Just then, Nebesnogo found another clue. A datapad had dropped behind one of the machines, but Nebesnogo noticed it because its yellow light was visible from just the right angle. The pad itself contained a few notes, and one of them read: "05:12: fluctuation in power supply again; sent maintenance request -- Lt. Moolak Kerina" and smiley face was scribbled next to the line.

[T'Sal]

“Hey guys I managed to get my hand on three videos. The security is very good and I cannot get access to more files. Let’s start with the video of the auxiliary lab.”

T’sal waits for the other to come close and watch and then pushes the play button.

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Hey I found something that might indicate when this started." he said as he flew over to the rest the data pad in hand.

"It mentioned power fluctuations and a time when noticed." Nebesnogo continued as he showed that pad to them.

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel joined the others to watch the security footage. "Good work Nebesnogo Sveta. lets see what the video's show. Likely the timer of the security footage will show the same time."

[Storyteller (Brend)]

When the other padawan are with her, T'Sal hits the play button. The screen fades to black, and starts replay of archived footage from the auxiliary laboratory. The footage contained a location marker in the top right: "Aux.Lab. 14", a time indication at the bottom of the screen, and an 'audio included' icon. The time starts out twelve hours before the padawan entered.

The scene on the video shows an empty laboratory, clearly not yet destroyed. The video speeds up to wind through ten minutes of time where nothing happens.

*boom* an explosion could be heard, and the video shakes a little as the camera is jolted around.

The video speeds up again until five minutes later, when a soldier enters the lab. "Clear!" the soldier shouts back. When he turns around to shout, the padawan recognize him as the dead soldier near the door. Three more soldiers enter the lab, two men and one woman. They quickly look over the equipment, but continue on.

The video fast-forwards four hours of time, and slows down again to show two scientists entering the lab. One of the scientists is pushing the NICU, and a small baby could be seen inside the device. The baby seems to be happily asleep, with only a purple hand sticking our form underneath a blue kitten blanket. The scientists appear nervous. "Are you sure they said lab 14?", the first asks the second. "Yes. He ordered us to take the baby to 14 and wait. Don't worry, they're house Iaat."

Half a minute later, two soldiers enter the room. Both are recognized by the jedi immediately: one was the soldier they found at the door again, the other was the woman.

"I think we lost it.", the woman started.

"We're getting out of here." the male soldier told the scientists. "You two can come with us."

Just as one of the scientists wanted to reply, a sound best described as a roaring hiss could be heard.

Immediately, the male soldier burst into action. He smashed the glass of the intensive care unit, grabbed the baby, and ran off in the direction of the landing platform. "Run! Follow him!", the woman shouted to the two scientists, as she toggled a switch on her gun. Just as the scientists started toward the exit, the woman tried to open fire on something off the screen.

With a loud thud, a red-purple creature, roughly the sice of Fecta Trigiel but wider, landed on top of the soldier. The creature immediately jumped off of her, and smashed the first scientist into the wall. The second scientist got a little further, but fell down after the creature somehow cut off his leg. ignoring the bleeding scientist, the creature bounded into the hallway toward the exit. Unfortunately for the Jedi, the security camera was of mediocre quality, and the creature acted too fast to see actual details.

A loud crunching sound could be heard, and half a minute later the creature entered the room again. This time, the Jedi got a good look at the creature, and could easily see that it was a rather large insect. It appeared to be a bizarre cross between a wasp and a spider; the body of a wasp, with the legs and eyes of a spider. Its carapace was red-purple, and it had four pairs of eyes. More remarkable, it walked on six legs, and seemed to have a pair of insectile arms as well. Though the claws on it's hands were clearly sharp, it carried the baby very carefully, making sure to hold it close.

It walked over to the bleeding scientist and looked at him for a moment. Then it continued on towards the soldier, looked at her, and with two of its legs grabbed her and threw her over its back to carry her. Finally, it looked up at the camera, flexed its mandibles and stretched its legs, and bit the camera.

The screen faded back again, showing the three videos accessible to the jedi.

[Fecta Trigiel]

"I think I saw the female soldier at the control panel over there, that leaves us one soldier and one missing team." Then Trigiel looked at the time of the video: "12 hours ago? So, Duke Vyapar did already ask for our help before sending in the second team? Lets play the other two video's and see what turned up."

((OOC: I believe the travel time from temple to here is longer than 12 hours.))

[Storyteller (Brend)]

((OOC: Correct. The flight takes longer, going by the flight-rate of the map, it takes approximately 6 days. With a small and fast ship you can make it in a little under 3 days.

Note that it is absolutely impossible to get the timing to match up with real time -- you jedi took roughly 10 real weeks to get from the door to where you are now. I assume that from the moment you arrive at Mirda things are happening in 'pseudo time'. I will try to put all time references in the 'since the jedi entered the facility' frame.))

[T'Sal]

This video seemed to show the first group of soldiers that had been sent. They were trying to retrieve one of their experiments but seem to have failed. The blanket of the baby was at the door so now it is probably somewhere outside. T’sal looks for a way of downloading the video’s to S4 so they can take this as evidence. She signs to S4 to come and download the video’s. She then realizes that S4 still has to do his analysis here.

((Check: 9 = 5 Force Level + 3 Vision + 1 Slicing -- Find a way to copy video's. Not sure on what this goes))

“S4 will you make your analysis round and record everything.” She then turns to the professor. “Professor Dewa, what do you make of this and the big insect creature?”

T’sal is curious at what their expert on genetic research had to say about this. After he has given his insights T’sal looks at the console to see how many cameras are currently working, she puts them on the monitors as to see what the other soldiers are doing now.

“I want to know what the other soldiers are doing now. I will put the other videos onto another console so you can watch it there.”

((Check: 11 = 5 Force Level + 5 Reason + 1 Slicing -- Getting acces to live cameras and put videos onto another console so the others can watch it there.))

[Fecta Trigiel]

Trigiel looked a little confused at T'sal, as far his cyborg head could look confused, "why the hard effort? We are already at the console here, just press play, lets see what the videos show and then ask questions."

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Trigiel is right lets first watch what is going on and then make a time line so we can see what is going on." Nebesnogo said while hoovering behind T'sal so he could see what was going on on the screen.

[Storyteller (Brend)]

T'Sal was easily able to download the three videos she had access to to S4. After storing the videos, S4 started walking around the security centre with a happy chirp.

Dewa Karinth, the veolian professor in charge of the facility, quickly replied to T'Sal: "Ehm. That insect is nothing like any of the creatures we study in the facility. I don't understand why it took the soldier with it, but left the scientist to blood out."

T'Sal could easily get the videos on another screen while she tried to hack the system. This seemed to be the extent of her abilities within the digital security system, however. Her renewed efforts to gain access to the live feeds were quickly stopped with a red 'Access denied' message -- whomever built this security system was very good, and had a lot of experience doing these things.

The videos played on a slightly larger screen where Trigiel and Nebesnogo had a good view of them:

The second video showed footage from a location called 'Sec.Stat. 25 cluster B', a time indication at the bottom of the screen showed that this was footage from just before the facility went dark. An icon indicated 'no audio feed available'.

The scene on the video shows a wide hallway with bright artificial lighting. At the left side of the image, a security checkpoint could be seen. The checkpoint was marked with large blue letters on the wall: 'Security Station 25'.

The video sped up to fast forward ten minutes of guards talking to each other with the occasional scientist walking past the checkpoint.

The video slowed down to normal time again as a third guard approached the checkpoint, running. He ran past the two guards while shouting something and tapping his gun. A few seconds later, the hallway changed colour from bright white to a dark red. One of the two guards turned around and tapped a few commands on the checkpoints console, while the second guard grabbed his walky-talky and talked into it.

At the end of the hallway, a calm group of scientists and maintenance personnel could be seen heading toward the checkpoint, and the guard with the walky-talky motioned for them to move along. He said something to the guard at the console, and followed the group.

The video sped up again until five minutes later, when the guard returned.

Another speed-up brought the video to twenty-five minutes after the return of the guard, when the hallway suddenly turned dark, and emergency lighting snapped on moments later. The security console showed a large orange text: "L4CB".

Five seconds later, one of the guards pointed off-screen while he shouted something. The second guard looked up, and grabbed his gun. The first guard walked toward the camera and just as he went off-screen he staggered back, his neck cut open and bleeding profusely.

Unfortunately, the Jedi didn't get any more information from this video, as the camera started to display static just after the second guard opened fire.

The third video's location was marked 'Lab. C3', the time indication showed ten minutes before the previous video. This video had an audio stream:

The scene showed a view of a genetics laboratory with two man-sized pods filled with a clear blue fluid. A baby was suspended in the fluid in the left pod, while the right pod was empty.

A veolian scientist walked onto the scene, and started using the equipment attached to the left pod.

"Need some help over there?", a male voice spoke from off-screen.

"No, I'm fine. Go grab the NICU already, the termination order came through.", the scientist replied while looking annoyed.

"Sure.", the reply from the off-screen male sounded glad.

The scientist at the equipment tweaked some dials on the machinery, and the fluid started to drain from the pod slowly.

The video fast-forwarded five minutes, and returned to normal speed while a second scientist, a meagre veolian man, walked into the screen, pushing a NICU with a kitten blanket and pillow in it. While the Jedi recognized the NICU, they haven't seen these scientists before.

"What's the deal with the pillow?" asked the annoyed scientist.

"We're taking it to an incinerator. There's no harm in allowing it to get some nice sleep at least." the meagre scientist replied.

"This is going to take a while... Say, did you get a good look at Professor Iaat Lonara's research assistant?", the annoyed scientist changed the subject suddenly.

The video sped up five minutes of draining fluid and talking scientists. When the video returned to normal speed, all fluid was drained, and the baby was lying on the bottom of the pod.

The annoyed scientists took some gloves from a box, and put them on, while the other opened the pod.

"Ok. Now listen demon-child", the annoyed scientist spoke to the baby, "don't do any of your energy trickery now, ok. We're just going to terminate you, nothing bad. Just stay sleeping."

As the scientist walked toward the pad, the whole room went dark. Ten seconds later emergency lighting kicked in.

"Vai! What's going on now. Go check it out, I'll take care of this.", the meagre scientist said.

"Heh, just like you; you want to give it a pillow, but you're going to 'take care' of it anyway.", the annoyed scientist said a little sarcastically. "Well sure, I'll go and see about this power outage."

The annoyed scientist left the scene, while the meagre scientist put the baby in the NICU. Then, he left the scene as well.

The video sped through three hours of empty laboratory without any events.

Suddenly, the video slowed down to normal speed again as the annoyed scientist ran into the room.

"No please, I didn't do anything. I was just following orders! I didn't even touch it!", he shouted. "Wait, no! I'll tell you where the others are!"

Suddenly, the whole image rotated together with a loud rumble, and the image only showed an upside-down door marked with "C12".

The video faded to black a few seconds after the Jedi heard the muted crunch of bones breaking.

"What was going on in my lab?!", professor Dewa sounded a little afraid.

[T'Sal]

“Damn, the system has looked me out. We might need to get on security expert to get to access to this system.”

T’sal then moves to professor Dewa. She puts her hand on his shoulder as to comfort him and calm him down.

“Professor, this is not your lab but Iaat Vypars. It is his choice to not let you know any of this ‘secret’ research. And he will have to answer our questions as to why he does this in a government subsidized research facility for corps and farm animals. There seem to quite some people involved in this project so we need to be careful before making a statement. We might need to get a good lawyer to see if we can file charges.

I do not know how intelligent that creature is, but the soldiers where shooting at it I believe. It has killed that male soldier and taken the baby. Then it came back and run off with the female soldier. This behavior might be some primitive urge or do you think it is sentient?”

T’sal looks to the others and then to S4, to see if he has finished his analysis of this room. She waits if they have to say something on the matter before continuing.

“Let’s move on to the server room and see if we can get your research data professor and also the files of the baby.”

((OOC: S4 was investigation the room and making records of it, please let me know how that went.))