Chapter 6 - Knock Knock

Iso-One, a modified BFF-1 bulk freighter, is the regional base for IsoTech operations on the edge of the Tion Cluster. The ship looks to be mostly intact but you can see repairs are ongoing as you approach. IsoTech is a smaller tech company that operates around the mid to outer rim.

Meebo and Nox have spent the last couple days doing odd jobs around the ship, earning their room and board. It doesn't take long to realize that IsoTech's business crosses most legal boundaries. :)

The crew of the Slippery Ghest had barely landed back at Iso-One when Norta, the Rodian station manager approached them. "Oh good your back. I assume there weren't any issues passing on our new location to our supplier. Anyway, you can tell me about it as we walk. If you would be so kind, I've got a hot tip I'd like to see if you're interested in. Let's move into the briefing room and I can give you the details.

Meebo and Nox are mid-way through the day, organizing upgraded power couplers, when the warehouse manager tells them that they have been requested to come to Briefing Room 1.

Once everyone is in and seated, Norta stands beside a podium at one end of the room. "Ken and crew, Meebo and Nox came to us a couple days ago looking for opportunities. There skills seem like a better fit on a ship like yours than here on Iso-One. I hope you'll consider taking them along, if you're interested in this job." Norta cracks what Rodian's and some savvy folks might recognize as a grin and a wink.

"To business, the Tarivo system is mid-rim, Lantillian sector. The place has been mined for centuries, the habitable planet Tarvio 3, is mined out and the locals run huge fisheries for food and profit. There are two mid planets, Tarvio 4 and 5, no atmosphere but also loaded up with metals and mining ops. Beyond that is a massive asteroid belt and there are at least 3 mining stations floating out there running a dozen or so asteroid mines. We have a friend on Balbet Station who runs survey for the Balbet Mining Co. and he spotted what appears to be some sort of abandoned facility. If he reported it to his bosses, they'd claim it and thank him for his efforts. So, he passed the location on to us hoping for more than a pat on the head. I need to get a team out to that site, assess if it has value and decide if we need to claim it, loot it or forget it. You know, or maybe some combination of those. I'm offering you a thousand credits each to go check it out. If the place has value, we'll do 10% profit sharing to split among your team. You now know everything I do about the site except the coordinates, if you're interested, I'll point you to it."

Norta smiles again at Ken's question. "Well, they came complete with blasters and IPKCs. Not to mention your old friend Dancy dropped them off. Seemed she knew Meebo's former partner and thought they'd work out if given a chance."

As you reach your ship, one of the IsoTech employees meets you there with a case of six Environment suits.

"Hey there, Norta said you might need these, in case you run into some vacuum. They ain't armor so don't go ripping them."

You clomp onto the ship, bringing the case of Environment suits with you. Pergano is on the bridge and confirms that he has the coordinates for the asteroid and the abandoned site. And is ready to go if everyone is settled.

Thanks, lots of good info there.
Glad to see the layout too. I hope that Nox gets at least a cot in storage lol.

While everyone is having a look around the ship, Pergano, the Xexto pilot, eases the ship out of the bay and begins setting up the Hyperspace jump. You're in the middle of settling in when you feel the subtle change in the vibrations of the deck plates, indicating you're in Hyperspace now.

Arriving on the outer edge of the Tarvio system, Pergano flies below the Orbital Plane, allowing you to see some of the asteroids that make up the immense belt. Pergano puts in the local coordinates of the 'site' you're to investigate and heads into the belt.

After about forty minutes you approach the site and Pergano brings the ship to a hover just above what appears to be a recessed landing area.

Pergano looks over the console as he hovers.

"Passive scans don't show much more that residual power, it could be deserted and dead or just on standby."

Pergano looks around at the faces peering out the windows. "Alright, no one said 'Run for it', so here goes."

He lowers the gear and then lowers the ship into the landing bay. You watch as the darkness suddenly envelopes you. You all know the science, but the sudden shift in light that the lack of atmosphere causes catches you by surprise. Pergano pauses and hit's the lights. As he finishes his decent, you're pretty sure this place has been here for a couple decades at most. The walls of the landing area have some minor pitting but are in much better shape than you were expecting for an abandoned facility.

Pergano kills the lights once you're on the surface. You can tell by the way the ship settled in, you're on a solid pad, but the gravity is just 'asteroid gravity'. If there is artificial gravity, it's been off for a bit.

"Ok guys, I'll go dark and watch the passives, in case someone tries to sneak up on us. You'll definitely need your suits to make it to the bay doors."

The four of you bounce down the ramp. Reaching the surface, you confirm that there is a proper landing pad under about an inch of space dust. From the pad, you regain some of the perspective that viewing objects in space robs you from. This bay is big enough to hold 2 or possibly 3 freighters the size of the Ghest. The 'north' end of the bay has a set of double doors around 6 meters tall and probably 10 meters wide. Along the 'east' side of this 15-meter-deep landing area, just below the top of the bay, you see the slightly bulging windows of an observation or flight control deck. At ground level, also along the 'east' wall, you spot 5, evenly spaced and standard sized doors. Your initial impressions are the place appears in good shape, with no obvious damage.

The scanner shows nothing. If there is life or power here, it is very minimal or well shielded.

Ken and Nox take up positions along the edge of the Ghest and bring guns to bear on the wall of doors. AD-hoc makes an unassuming direct line towards one of the doors.

AD-hoc uses his tools to access a maintenance panel and triggers the mechanical release for the door latches. Attaching a rotary tool to the now exposed manipulation point. He powers open the first door.

Through the now open doorway, he can see a 10 meter hallway to a T intersection.

Meebo starts down the corridor, the metallic clank of his magnetic boots gently echoing inside his suit. He can hear the breathing of Ken and Nox over the suit comms as they follow him into the structure. The corridor itself looks to be in decent shape, there is less dust on the floors and no sign of it being disturbed recently.

Reaching the T intersection of the corridor, Meebo can see that the two directions extend farther than his suits lights are willing to go. As he looks back and forth between the halls a sparkle catches his eye on the wall in front of him. Looking up, there seems to be a dust covered sign, the corner of which was just clear enough to reflect his suit lights. Reaching up with his blaster he taps the sign, causing the layer of dust to shake loose. The cloud of dust falls slowly in the microgravity of the asteroid, revealing directions. The words "Command" with a Right arrow and below that "Maintenance / Warehouse" with a Left arrow.

The hallway to the right has two doors on the right, they seem to closely match two of the external doors. At the end of the hallway is a Turbolift.

Meebo doesn't find anything particularly interesting in the hallway. While examining the turbolift door, he remembers that there is usually a maintenance ladder inside the shaft.

AD-hoc and Meebo locate the maintenance panel and, after opening it, release the manual catch. Hearing the click, Nox easily pulls the outer door open. Looking inside, the turbolift car is at the top of the shaft. Clearly visible at the back of the shaft is the maintenance ladder.

Nox leaps across the quarter meter deep 'chasm' to the ladder and begins to climb. Meebo and AD-hoc exchange bemused or perhaps bewildered glances before walking across the floor of the turbolift shaft. Ken does a peculiar eye ridge motion that passes as a Rodian eye roll.

The four of you climb the approximately 10 meters and Nox spots the manual hatch release on the bottom of the turbolift car. Moments later you've all scrambled into the car and closed the bottom hatch. It becomes obvious that this is either a freight or maybe a military lift. The walls have some scratches and the top and bottom hatches are not covered the way many civilian lifts are.

Meebo and AD-hoc are getting the hang of these doors and quickly pop the manual release. As Nox eases the door open, your helmet lights shine down the roughly 15 meter passage. There are two doors on each side of the hallway and one at the end.

Meebo and AD-hoc pop the maintenance panels for their respective doors. Once the releases are triggered, Nox and Meebo slide into the room on the right. Nox's helmet lights sweep the room, revealing two long tables with matching benches. The tables and benches appear welded to the floor and the far wall has what looks to be standard food dispensers. Nox's"Clear." sounds on everyone's comms.

At the signal, AD-hoc pulls back his door and Ken sweeps into the room. A loud explosion rocks the base as the team is swept into space. Ken's gaze picks out a fairly complete Medical room. An exam table on the right with an empty Bacta tank in the back corner. To the left, there are various cabinets and a small exercise machine.

The team moves up to the next set of doors. Nox and Meebo find what looks like an office at first. There is a desk, computer, filing cabinets, etc. But it's all on the left side of the room, beyond a divider, to the right is a 'bedroom'. A single bed is there with nightstand and storage trunk. A doorway at the back looks like it leads to a private refresher unit. It looks like some 'administrator' had the dubious luxury of working from home.

Ken and AD-hoc move into their room and discover another living space. There are 3 sets of bunk beds, along the right wall with some space in the center of the room for a 'lounge'. An L shaped couch with a table along with another small table and some chairs are placed here. A door in the back wall leads into a multi stall refresher unit. Despite the dust, the room seems to be in good order.

The four of you regroup in the hallway near the door at the end.

Meebo's examination of the office table revels no new info. Although, the neat appearance suggests that whatever happened here wasn't rushed. Everything you've seen so far, including the office, appears to have been neatly and intentionally powered off.

With practiced ease, AD-hoc releases the mechanical override to the door. As the door slides open, the team sees this indeed does appear to be the main control room. To the left the wall has a curved window that looks out over the landing area. Most of the room is taken up with two long consoles. The consoles sit facing the window, with two stations with chairs in the 'front' row and stations in the back row. The center station is currently occupied by the very still form of a droid. There is another door on the far side of the room, it has a large sign that is just obscured enough by dust, that it's not legible from here.

The droid stands motionless as you approach and after a brief assessment, seems to be simply, 'powered off'.

AD-hoc is able to confirm that the consoles are truly without power. Nox wipes the dust off of the sign revealing "Main Power Control".

AD-hoc enters the "Main Power Control" room. It is a smaller room, there is one console on the back wall. That console glows faintly, most likely the with Standby power from the generator. Advancing on the console, AD-hoc easily recognizes the power on sequence. Just a couple switches and a button, the lights come on.

Returning to the Control Room, AD-hoc and the others note the windows have polarized slightly. It appears to keep the light in, while still allowing the crew to see out. The tactical droid has not moved and to Meebo, shows no signs of powering up.

On the consoles in front of the droid, Ken watches over AD-hoc's shoulder as the screens begin to fill up with status reports.

Power - ON
Gravity -Initializing
Environmental - Initializing
Sensors - Initializing
Communications - Initializing

As the words scroll onto the screens, you can feel the slight vibrations in the floor as the facility is coming back to life. You make out the mechanical sounds of Environmental systems as the dust on the consoles begins to blow gently as the air is pumped back into the rooms. Your legs begin to feel the tug of gravity is it's slowly increasing and overtaking the pull of your magnetic boots.

AD-hoc taps through the menus to stop Communications from coming online. But just as he goes to interrupt the comms, the status changes to Online. Now faced with a working comms system, he quickly taps through the controls and brings up the message queues. The Outgoing queue is Empty. The Incoming queue contains one message, It appears to be 'read' but marked 'Do not delete'. The date format looks odd, but best guess puts it around 18 years ago.

"Attention all CIS personnel: The CONFEDERACY OF INDEPENDENT SYSTEMS has surrendered to the New Republic. Lay down your arms, close your workstations, shutdown your facility and return home. Any active combat should cease immediately. Any combat troops in the presence of New Republic troops should surrender in order to be processed back to their homes. END TRANSMISSION"

AD-hoc starts pulling up info on the base. Most of the files have been deleted, but up pops the Base Schematic.

Ken ponders for a moment, no idea on the droids. If they have blaster rifles, that's nearly a 1000 credits each. Of course, resale would be half-ish. Might need to go count and see what we have. Thats when Ken remembers the original Job was exploration. They were promised 10% of the haul (minimum) if they call it in to IsoTech to come with a ship and guys to load it all up. That would also streamline the process of selling it all...

AD-hoc's assessment, though not optimal, rings true. In the meantime, everyone can feel the pressure of the air pressing in on their suits and the artificial gravity is nearly full strength. There is a vibration coming from the floor that causes everyone to relax just a little. The station is on and the strange sensation of quiet has been replaced with the 'normal' hum of a working space facility.

AD-hoc hurries after the others as the retrace their steps. The hallway back to the turbolift is brightly lit and surprisingly comfortable considering how long the environmentals have been on. The turbolift door opens quickly and quietly as they touch the door controls. The ride down is much less effort than the previous climb. The team emerges into the lower-level hallway ready to continue their search.

The team proceeds to the far end of the hallway. The corridor lacks some of its ominous presence now completely lit by the overhead lights. The Maintenance Shop door opens quickly and quietly with the touch to the access pad. The room is not overly large and the walls are lined with workbenches and machinery. It's obvious most of the facility maintenance and quite a bit of starship repairs could be done with the tools in this room.

Meebo spots a specialized looking mini-comp. Powering it up, he realizes that it's droid diagnostic comp. Moving back down the corridor one room you find the repair droid room does contain 1 AD- model of technical droid and 4 of the common pit droids. All 5 are standing in charging/support racks. A number of droid limbs are hanging on the walls and a droid oil bath is in the corner.

Meebo spots a specialized looking mini-comp. Powering it up, he realizes that it's droid diagnostic comp. Moving back down the corridor one room you find the repair droid room does contain 1 AD- model of technical droid and 4 of the common pit droids. All 5 are standing in charging/support racks. A number of droid limbs are hanging on the walls and a droid oil bath is in the corner.

After mentally cataloguing the droid room, the team moves on to Security B1. The main part of the room is a 10 droid charging rack. There are 10 B1 battle droids, standing at attention, apparently powered off.

The B1 droids are currently at 20%.

After shuffling the other rifles into the Repair droid room, it's a simple task for AD-hoc to lock the door. Moving into the B2 droid room reveals a similar configuration to the B1 droids. Ten B2 droids stand at attention, their right arms bent at the elbow with the fist pointing up. The charging rack hums quietly as it continues its charging of the droids.

After locking the door, you head down the hallway to the warehouse. Once through the door, the space opens into a semi-natural cavern. To the right is a large rack holding 4 Vulture droids/starfighters. The area ahead extends over 50 meters. To your left, the room extends at least 50m. You see the two large doors that you saw from the outside when you landed. The is a 30m square area directly in front of the doors that is clear. The rest of the room is row after row of shelves, all full of mechanical looking items. After a minute of perusing the contents, AD-hoc is sure he could repair the entire base and several small ships with the parts here.

"Hey guys, " Pergano comms you from the ship, "Looks like we're going to have some company. I picked up a ship on passive that has cruised by twice and now it looks like they're about to land. For what it's worth, they haven't done any active scanning and I've got the ship locked and powered down, so I doubt they know if the base and ship are occupied or abandoned."

As the three of you make it back to the door where you originally entered. You see from the now powered on panel that the Environmental Force screen at the top of the landing bay powered on with the rest of the facility. The readout shows that the atmosphere and temperature around the ship is now normal.

AD-hoc, upon returning to the Command room, accesses the main console. It becomes obvious that there are probably more menus that could be accessed if AD-hoc could gain elevated access.

Success, AD-hoc has accessed all command functions for the base. Additional Menus appear on the screen.

Power
Gravity
Environmental
Sensors
Communications
Defenses
- Shields
- Turret Control
Security
- B1 commands
- B2 commands
- Vulture commands

" I'd say about a minute. But only because they're being cautious, if they wanted they could land in a few seconds."

As Ken slides into the turret seat, he can see the ship maneuvering into place to begin it's decent into the landing bay. Nox and Meebo take up their positions and figure the ship is about 100 meters above them.

The ship stops its decent when Ken contacts them. "Um, sorry, we thought this place was abandoned. We were... The voice trails off and Ken, Nox and Meebo see the 4 turbo lasers that surround the landing bay swivel in to aim at the ship. Suddenly the ship goes full throttle and disappears from view and, more importantly to them, the line of fire.

Tarvio System, outer asteroid belt.

AD-hoc stands at the main console of the asteroid base, Pergano moves in front of the secondary console adjusting and monitoring systems like only a Xerto can. The Separatist Tactical droid stands in the corner, powered off and little more than a conversation piece or hat rack.

Down below, Ken, Nox and Meebo form a triangle in front of the main door. Ken stands triumphantly with his chest puffed as the Isotech supply ship settles into the landing bay. Once the ramp lowers, a Sullustan comes down to meet you, followed by half a dozen techs in jumpsuits. You recognize the Sullustan, Jancul, as one of Norta's assistants from Iso-1, though you've never really spoken to him.

"Well done, this place looks amazing and if it's as stocked as you say, we'll be up and running in no time. Do you mind showing me around and what are your thoughts going forward. I know Norta offered you 10%, but I'm pretty sure he was expecting a couple crates of gear and a non-functional hole in a rock. If we turn this into some sort of growing business, he'll be cutting you monthly checks for quite a while."

"I will, of course, pass on your request once we do a detailed accounting of the base. The techs are off to find the maintenace tounels and see what conditions the insides are in."


The next few days fly by as everyone is tasked with inventory and system diagnostics checks. Finally as the last of the check boxes are checked, Jancul gathers you together.

"I spoke with Norta and it seems we've hit the jackpot. He has a paying customer lined up to use the base and they have already requested your team to remain here. Apparently they already have something in the works and were negotiating a 'fire team' when the base came up." Glancing at his wrist comms, "Oh my, they seem to be arriving now."

He turns and heads towards the landing bay.