4952 Delcia

Nero sighs.

"Well, I was hoping we could get in better shape before exploring the place, but since we're already here... Let,s just hope this EMP killed all the crabs left in here."

He then turns to Kandza.

"In case things go south, you have a weapon?"

She shakes her head.

"I'm afraid I'm down to my knife. I emptied my magazine in panic while fleeing..."

Nero groans...

"Great... Alright, let's go. Try to stay behind me, hopefully this little gizmo will make quick work of any crabs we may encounter..."

Nero merely sighed again, he had hoped the party would have seen reason in healing up first...

"Alright, let's follow puddles over here..."

You carefully make your way across the bridge, now slick with the viscera of "space crabs", carefully avoiding the more damaged areas. You finally reach the other side where the rock face crumbled as the swarm of crabs burst out. You also find Trudy's remains, the robot that sacrificed itself to give you time to cross the bridge safely.

Nearby, you see the doors accessing the two rooms you had not time to explore, then in front of you, the stairs and the lift, both heading up.

Sam tries to carefully remove Trudy's CPU, hoping to save her companion's personality and hopefully transfer it to a new robotic body, however, a surge of emotions swell up as she's working on the "corpse" of what has been her only companion for so long. She tries to work as best she can through the sudden tears blurring her vision, slow, methodical... until she hears a loud audible "snap". This can't be good...

Meanwhile, Sorrack sneaks to the stairwell, confident his squishy "tiptoes" are making him as silent as the wind. He peers into the stairs the group had taken mere moments ago and notice several new "crab" holes which were not there before, but they all seem to be leaking some nauseous liquid that Sorrack, judging by the acrid smell, deduces must be metal-eating, acid-spewing crab viscera.

Nero turns to Sam.

"Yeah, left sounds good."

He then turns towards Sorrack, trying to not be too loud in case some crabs may have survived...

"Hey, puddles, how's that shaft looking?"

"Liquid state?"

Nero finally gets it when he glances back at the bridge covered in crab guts...

"Oh yeah, I see... Sure, go ahead and open, it'll allow me to still shoot over your head as well if I need to."

The door to this room opens inward. The first thing you notice are puddles of melted metal. Then as the door open wider, you notice several pieces of equipment of alien design next to those puddles of melted metal, aligned right next to each other. They look like perhaps some form of computers or data transferring devices... well, definitely of electronic nature at least... You spot some more holes further in the room, but the all seem to be leaking crab guts so it looks clear.

Nero has a quick look inside.

"Seems like they're not all destroyed... perhaps Federation Navigation systems Inc. will be able to get something out of those and pay us a pretty credit for telling them about those..."

Kandza frowns at Nero's mention of being in this for the credits, and then starts analyzing the alien tech with her portacomp.

"Hard to say for certain. I'll need something better than this portacomp to know for sure if there's still some data in those that might be worth recovering."