They All Uprose (Dark Heresy IC)

[Blarghy]

"The Emperor protects," he repeats. And then continues to repeat under his breath, spicing it up with other whispered prayers as he worriedly follows the others. It's hard to say if Novus finds any of this comforting, but at least he isn't crying under a rock somewhere. Maybe he can further distract himself by studying the interesting mechanics lying around the camp, along with thinking back to old legends about things in or near caves of planets such as this, stories being his specialty. In the process, he might even get lucky and figure out part of the puzzle with which they've been presented.

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Common Lore (Tech) (42): (1d100)[98]

Scholastic Lore (Legend) (62): (1d100)[18]

Logic (42): (1d100)[58]

[-Sentinel-]

"You know, Solomon, if I were to assault this place, I'd send in a scout first, pull the plug, and then attack while the turrets were deactivated. I'd see no reason to turn them back on when I left."

The bounty hunter nodded. "That's how I'd proceed as well. There might even have been a traitor or spy among those at the camp. We'll sweep the place and see if you're right."

As they approached, Solomon surveyed the light damage to the tents. "Clean job... I bet they were looking for something or someone in particular. You don't get here without a ship; and if you have one, you can just bomb the place. There's a reason why they took the chance of a foot assault."

[Blarghy]

"Or they were already here," Novus suggests quietly. His eyes stray to the cave.

Creepy-crawlies, scurrying in the dark.

[Destro_Yersul]

Approaching the camp, the two turrets did nothing more than stand as they were. Walking up to one, Gabe saw that these were a different pattern from the ones he was used to. Instead of the bulky auto-targeting software a normal Tarantula would carry, these had a manual control pad. They weren't linked by cable to the generator, as far as he could see, which meant they must have their own power source. Independant of the charge cells for the multilasers, he imagined, looking at the indicators. Both of them glowed a dull red - the weapons were, if not out of ammunition, critically low on it.

Close up, the tents appeared a little more damage, as well. The worst of it seemed to have hit the one large tent which, from here, was looking increasingly like it had been meant as a sort of small barracks. The one next to it looked like it had served the same purpose. Moving past the Tarantula, they reached the Medicae tent. The inside was set up as a crude first-aid station, more designed to serve as quick relief for workplace injuries than to provide any sort of long-term care. There was a small wash-station, a small tank of water screwed onto the side, and a table. The sand had gotten everywhere in here, the surface of the table covered in grit. Under the table was a metal case marked with the same red cross that had been on the side of the tent, and a spraygun with a cap on the nozzle and a canister attached to the bottom. Novus read the label: it was synth-skin.

Novus Only

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Unfortunately, most of the equipment they had here seemed to be beyond Novus' experience at first glance. He thought he might be able to operate the Tarantulas, if it came to that, but he certainly wouldn't be a very good shot with them. Fortunately, multilasers were capable of full-auto.

There was something else, too, at the back of his mind, distracting the logical part of it from thinking logically. He'd heard stories about Klybo, collected a few over the years. He'd heard that there were huge monsters in the deep desert, things akin to Ambulon. Novus had never seen Ambulon, but he knew what it was. A collosal metal city-machine, moving across Scintilla's surface with its population clinging to the top. It sounded horrifying. Fortunately, nobody had ever seen one here, and it couldn't be easy to miss something that big. There were other things too, things the briefing materials had mentioned. The planet's original settlement had supposedly happened back during the Dark Age of Technology. They had left Standard Template Constructs behind, and other wonders of a more advanced time. They had all died, though. Vanished entirely before the Imperium ever reached Klybo, leaving nothing behind but the ruins of their colony and a barren desert. The administratum had attempted their own settlements, originally, but nothing had ever come of it.

[Blarghy]

He again looks to the cave, this time with hesitant interest. If Raltus has found what Novus thinks he might've found, then Valle won't care for a second about the man, not compared to other potential prizes. She might even be grateful enough to set Novus up with a nice mid-rank position on Terra where he can live out his days doing copy work, never again to see so much as a bolt shell. The idea makes his stomach flutter happily. Of course, to claim the Dark Age tech, they'll have to go down into the cave, where anything from Raltus to ancient insane servitors might be waiting. That makes the happy flutters turn to ice. Novus wrings his hands; maybe Raltus already unearthed objects of immeasurable value, then had the courtesy to turn on his companions, whereupon they all killed one another. Totally plausible.

The medical tent's relative innocence surprises him; he expected bodies. All the sand seems to imply that it's been abandoned for some time, at least a day or two, which gives Novus some hope that they aren't about to be ambushed. Thus slightly encouraged, he draws his hand-cannon and uses it to push away the flap of the barracks tent. Hopefully nothing inside moves quickly, or else it's likely to be blasted to dust (in turn snapping Novus's wrist and throwing him halfway across the camp).

[Artemis97]

Joss stays outside the tents, searching the area for signs of why the people in the camp had left and where they might have gone. Had they simply abandoned the place, having found nothing of use? Did they flee quickly? That seemed most likely, as they had left some expensive equipment behind. The warrior stalked around the camp, looking for signs of a struggle or conflict.

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Search (1d100)[80]

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gabe drew his autopistol and, stalking around the camp holding it in a two-handed unighter's grip, systematically visited eacth Tarantula, popping the nearly-spent ammo cases and pulling them slightly out of the magazine in order to disarm them.

As soon as he finished with this task, he decided now would be the time to peek inside the comms tent.

[-Sentinel-]

Solomon followed Joss around the camp in search of the signs of a struggle, trying to determine whether the people at the camp had opposed resistance and the direction from which the attack had come.

Search 39: (d100)[88]

[-Sentinel-]

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I'll FP my Search roll. Target 39: (d100)[96]

[Destro_Yersul]

Gabe disarmed the Tarantulas, the turrets taking no special notice of his ministrations. The control pads for the things could be detached, the priest noticed, and appeared to have a vox-link of some sort connecting them to the firing mechanicsms. Both of the pads were still in place, though.

While he was doing that, Solomon and Joss circled the camp. The weapon mounted to the back of the truck turned out to be a heavy bolter, of a pattern Solomon didn't recognise. The bolter's ammunition case was halfway empty, the expended shell casings covering the floor of the truck. There was no sign of what they had been fired at, though, and sand didn't hold impact craters so well. The wind had long-since erased any evidence of the direction of attack. The one damaged tent looked like it had put up some resistance too, the pair passing by it as Novus was peeking inside. The sandy floor was covered in small-caliber ammunition casings, a tear at the back of the tent open to the outside. It was big enough for a man to pass through, but there were none inside, bodies or otherwise, and nothing else moved. Both of the barracks tents appeared similarily stocked: two sets of double bunks, with a pair of footlockers each, a lamp pack on a small table, and a few chairs. Out front of the tents was a weapon rack, which still held a single autogun. Another couple of autoguns were visible on the floor of the damaged tent.

Meanwhile, Gabe had moved on to the equipment and comms tent. The generator outside it was off, the fuel gauge reading empty. Inside was a mess of machinery, complex scanning equipment gone dark when the power went out. A flakboard had been put up against one wall, supported by metal bars driven into the sand. Tacked to the flakboard were dozens of sheets of readouts from the scanning devices, some covered in scrawled annotations. The machinery Raltus had brought was difficult to understand, without knowing where to start. One of the devices had a set of curving antennae in an odd configuration, one of them looked like it was designed to have something inserted into a slot near the bottom, and a third seemed to have a piece of it missing - there was a socket on the front to connect to an attachment of some sort, but Gabe couldn't see it. The other thing in the tent, the priest did recognise: A powerful vox-caster, antennae extending up through the top of the ten. The unit was ruined, though, the interior components exposed by a gaping hole in the front that had burned straight through the machine and out the back. It would be quite impossible to get the vox working again without replacement parts.

OOC:

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Anyone who goes to the equipment tent may make a Trade (Technomat), Common Lore (Tech) or Tech-Use roll to understand something about the various machines inside. If anybody wants to search the barracks beyond a cursory glance, they may make a search test at +10, since the tents are only so big.

[Artemis97]

Nothing of note learned from a cursory glace at the outside of the camp, Joss ducked into one of the smaller tents, where the men had lived, looking for clues. Had they left suddenly, leaving their belongings behind, or did they pack up more carefully? He suspected the former would be true.

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Searching again, come on RNG! (1d100)[8]

[Blarghy]

Hesitantly, as though it holds some significance, Novus picks up a shell casing. He soon drops it; this whole business worries him. Surely they should've found some blood or other remains by now if a firefight happened here. Were the humans shooting blindly into the night with terror, not even able to see what came for them? Enemies which plucked them like grapes from the vine and carried them off to be devoured in some deep, dark place? The adept investigates the barracks more thoroughly for clues. If nothing else, maybe he'll find some grenades. Those autoguns are a bit beyond his training, sadly.

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Search (46):(1d100)[52]

[-Sentinel-]

The absence of bodies from either side greatly puzzled Solomon - why did the attackers bother with disposing of them? After circling a few times around the camp, he ended up in the comms tent, where Cortez already was. The bounty hunter nodded to the priest, then looked up and down at the complex machinery in front of him.

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Anyone who goes to the equipment tent may make a Trade (Technomat), Common Lore (Tech) or Tech-Use roll to understand something about the various machines inside.

Tech-Use 34: (d100)[47]

He pointed at the hole melted into the vox-caster. "I really doubt that was a stray shot..."

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gabe tapped the side of the vox-caster with his autopistol's silencer.
"Agreed. Too surgical." he said, frowning at the smoking ruin.
"I might be able to fix it with spare parts, but that'd require trekking back to the downed shuttle and cannibalizing that." The priest took a long drag of lho.
"So, surgical shot to the vox-caster to disable it. From the general lack of shrapnel, I'd guess heavy las. Could be from a Tarantula? Anyway, definitely some sort of sentient v. sentient scuffle, and the camp here was heavily overmatched. No bodies, so eaten, enslaved, or worse. They either bury their dead or - more frighteningly, suffered zero casualties."

Gabriel took another long drag, and eyed the equipment and their read-outs.
"Let's see if we can find out what these guys were looking at before their one-sided encounter with something bigger."

[Destro_Yersul]

The whole thing had clearly unnerved Novus, and searching through the things in the barracks took twice as long as it should have, every little sound making him jump. He did not, sadly, find any grenades. Searching through the footlockers mostly revealed clothing, and a couple small handfulls of coin the men had likely been trading back and forth gambling. One of the footlockers contained two clips for a boltgun, still full of their large-calibre explosive shells. Novus also found a couple of books, flipping carefully through them. They turned out to be journals belonging to the men who had stayed at the barracks. Some of the men had been worried, he saw, recording their fears in the books. At least one of them thought the whole planet was cursed, and the cave especially so. It was probably boundless superstition, but then one couldn't be too careful. One of the books trailed off near the end, the writer simply scrawling 'they are coming' over and over in a shaky hand. Here, also, Novus at last turned up some blood. There were a number of stains near the back of the tent, on the sand and on the bunks. The final page of the journal was badly stained, but the words 'they are here' were still barely visible.

Joss, leaving the barracks tents to Novus, had strayed outside the camp perimeter, towards the lean-to-like structure placed back from the others. Approaching it, the first thing the warrior noticed was the smell - it smelled terrible, like the inside of plate armour that had been worn for too long in the sun. The heat didn't help at all. There were no flies, for Klybo had no such things, but on another world there surely would have been. The bedroll inside was filthy and oversized, and a half-chewed ration brick had been left near the pillow. Small carved charms, made from bone, dangled on bits of string from the structure of the tent. The only thing of worth inside was a pair of ammo clips made for a gun that Joss didn't recognise. They looked like they held shotgun shells, but for a weapon larger than any shotgun he had ever seen.

Solomon and Gabe, meanwhile, stood in the equipment tent trying to make sense of the sensor readouts left behind. Gabe thought he might be able to operate some of the machinery, if he turned the power on and played around with it a little, but that wouldn't help them tell what it was measuring: A lot of the readouts seemed to be focused on energy levels, all of which seemed rather high for a planet on which nothing lived. These had clearly been spit out by the scanner with the oddly shaped antennae. Most of the rest dealt with complex chemical formulae, and the priest was unable to make heads or tails of these. It seemed like the machine with the slot was meant to analyze samples, breaking them down and determining various things about them from their material composition. Perhaps unfortunately, however, neither Gabe nor Solomon had ever received any formal education on the matter of Chymistry. More unfortunate still was the absense of the attachment for the third machine. That one Gabe had finally recognised: It was a Depth Augur, used to locate caverns or pockets of air through meters of stone. It could have been used to make a detailed map of the cavern system, but without the portable scanner to actually gather data, it was useless.

[Blarghy]

A more steady-minded reader might criticize the guard for writing in his diary when things were coming to eat them, but Novus likely would've done the same rather than take his weapon and prepare for battle. The final lines make him fling the journal away with a soft cry like it's a bar of spiky soap; he moves away from it quickly, only to stumble over the bloodstains. Nearly overwhelmed, he rapidly paces in a small circle, hugging himself, until he calms down. Then he wraps his hand in his mesh cloak, picks up the journal using only his thumb and forefinger, and carries it outside like a grotesque dead insect.

"I...found something," he tells Gabe and Solomon when he gets to their tent. Novus all but throws the book at their feet. "And...there's blood...back in the barracks. Still no bodies." He hugs himself again, imagining ancient machine creatures marching relentlessly into the camp, murdering some people but just grappling others, and dragging them all back down into the cave.

The adept starts to babble. "I remember stories about this place. Klybo was settled back during the Dark Ages; great technology was here, things like the Ambulon, the moving cities. But they all died. All the people died--what if their machines didn't? What if there're artificial intelligences here? And they've gone crazy. I think Raltus came here looking for Standard Template Constructs, but he woke something up instead. I think machines thousands of years old came out of the ground and got him and his men, took them back to the dark to make them into servitors--or maybe to just cut them up and see how they worked, because the AIs hadn't seen a human in so long. I think that's why there aren't any bodies."

[Artemis97]

Joss wrinkles his nose at the smell, briefly wondering if something had died in here. He prods the dangling charms, frowning, wondering what they meant. Obscure symbols of protection, or something more heretical? Seeing nothing much else of use, the warrior scoops up the oversized shells and brings them back towards the others. Perhaps they could use them, or at least identify them.

He steps into the equipment tent in time to hear the tail end of Novus' explanation. Behind the man's back, he rolls his eyes, but says. "If that were the case, I think there would have been more signs of struggle. What do you make of these?" He asks, holding up the shells.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gabe pointed at the machines in turn. "That one measure energy levels," he said, seemingly ignoring the others. "That one gives reading based on whatever samples you plug into it. If I was a chemist, I might be able to tell you for certain what was going on."
The Priest shot Novus a quick look layered with the implications that the Adept should get his learned hide over there and start decoding.
The third machine. "Depth Auger. It's used to detect pockets in the stone, through which I infer that -" Gabe whirled about dramatically and pointed to the cave Novus was fretting over. "Is a recent addition to the landscape, which does lend some creedence to the 'Ancient STC machines' theory Novus has."

Gabe took a breath and studied the shotgun shells in Joss' hand. "Oh, those? Those are just signs of a struggle, like the near-depleted Tarantulas outside and the general state of nobody being here in this camp. Giant walking shotgun, probably. Servitors can get pretty big, accepting Novus' theory as true, relics from the Dark Age could also be rather large and in need of a rather large shotgun."

Gabe shot an apprehensive look at the cave and made the sign of the Aquila.
"I don't think we're destined for many more answers up here. Feel free to prove me wrong. I'm going to point the turrets at the dangerous thing."

[-Sentinel-]

"What do you make of these?" He asks, holding up the shells.

Solomon's eyes narrowed. "Ripper gun shells. It usually takes an Ogryn to use one of those. They did mention our friend Raltus had an Ogryn with him, didn't they?"

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Got a PM from Destro about this.

[Blarghy]

The adept almost looks let down by the lack of response his theory provoked. On the other hand, that calms him down some, so it's likely for the best. He shuffles obediently over to the machine Gabe indicated.

"I'm not a chemist either..." he mumbles within a few moments of study. Maybe he can remember something all the same.

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Tech Lore (42): (1d100)[65]

[Destro_Yersul]

Unfortunately, Novus hadn't run across this particular machine, or the others, in his work before. The man on the station.. Janus? He had said that Raltus brought an Ogryn with him. Of course, Novus hadn't seen much sign of the hulking abhuman here, though it likely hadn't stayed in the barracks with the other men. Probably it had been holed up wherever Joss found the shells.

[Blarghy]

"Never seen it before," he soon decides of the machine. This talk of Ogryns worries him, but not as much as the things he believes live down below the sands. Gabe's idea highly appeals to him. "Yes, yes, let's move the turrets. Point them at the cave and..." He drifts off, probably about to suggest blasting the hole shut. However, Novus suspects his suicidal companions are going to want to investigate the wretched place. Even he's somewhat enticed by the possibility of STCs or other Dark Age tech.

[Artemis97]

"I think I may have found where he was living. Although I hadn't expected his surroundings to be so... filthy." Joss pulls a face, recalling the smell and half eaten food. Who would waste food like that?

[Destro_Yersul]

The turrets, as far as Gabe knew, wouldn't be difficult to swivel around, but it was anyone's guess if they'd stay that way once left alone. Actually flipping them around on their bases would be a lot harder: they had to weigh over a hundred kilograms each. Raltus had probably got the Ogryn to set them up, initially.

[-Sentinel-]

"I think I may have found where he was living. Although I hadn't expected his surroundings to be so... filthy."

Solomon shrugged. "Teaching an Ogryn basic cleanliness is like teaching it fine cuisine." He pointed at the remaining tents to the west of the camp. "Have we visited those yet? I don't think we did."

He began heading that way. Part of him dearly hoped that whatever they found in there would make a foray into the cavern redundant, but he did not bank on it.

"A look in the other shuttle might help, too," he called over his shoulder.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Good call. I'll check out the Shuttle!" Gabe shouted back, slipping his sidearm underneath his robes and drawing his scimitar, mindful of what awaited him in the cockpit of the last shuttle, before moving over and sliding the door open carefully, exposing only his eyes to peek around the corner.

[Destro_Yersul]

Gabe found the door of this shuttle, unlike the last one, to be locked. Next to the door was a keypad inside a small compartment, the light next to it glowing red. Seemed the shuttle was locked out, somehow.

While the priest was discovering that, Solomon had headed for the other tents. The storage tent, which got glanced at as he passed, had a large number of crates and barrels inside. Some of them looked like they held ammunition, and a few of the barrels were marked as 'flammable,' lettering stamped on them explaining their contents as Prometheum.

The two smaller tents, though, were his objective right now. These looked like they'd been set up for the camp's senior personnel, based on the contents. One had two bedrolls, and the other only had one bed in it. Solomon looked at the tent with only one bed first. There was a small desk, with a personal cogitator unit on top. Next to that was a small stack of dataslates, and a battered journal. A luminator sat on top of the desk, powered off. At the base of the bed was a footlocker, which proved to contain spare clothes, a wine glass, a bottle of amasec (of an exceptional year, if Solomon was any judge), a magnifying glass and a number of pens and inks bound up in a handsome case. There was also a small purse, containing a number of thrones in small denomination coinage.

The other tent was set up in a similar fashion, aside from the two beds. There was a table with a luminator, and two chairs to go with it. A regicide board was set up on the table, the pieces half scattered and half in the middle of a game that black appeared to be winning. Checking one footlocker revealed a set of collapsable cooking equipment, another set of quills and inks, and a sheaf of papers covered in tracings of odd circular glyphs that the bounty hunter didn't recognise. The other locker was more straightforward: medical scrubs, a wooden case of surgical tools, and a small stack of leather-bound logbooks.

[-Sentinel-]

Solomon knew at a glance that the tent with only one bedroll in it was the one belonging to Raltus - unless, that was, their quarry had been joined by someone more important. He gave the amasec an appreciative look and took the bottle with him to drink with his comrades later. He also pocketed the purse to share its contents with the others. Looting was unprofessional, but that was one of the perks of being a bounty hunter and not a rank-and-file arbitrator.

I wonder who was playing the blacks, he thought with a glance at the game of regicide. Not that all this strategic skill was much use when the camp was attacked.

He gave a long look at the papers with glyphs on them and stuffed them in his bag for later analysis. He was mostly interested in the journal and the dataslates, however - how often did criminals leave such sources of data behind? A gleam of triumph in his black eyes, he opened the journal and began to skim it.

[Thanatos 51-50]

With a heavy sigh, Gabe slid the scimitar into its scabbard and took a knee to examine the keypad in better detail.
Let's see if he could get this thing open...

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With whatever bonuses for taking as much time as nessecary.
techuse - (1d100)[58]
That being said? Hacking open standard keypads? That's something I have some training in. It's just a matter of changing the code.

EDIT: The RNG's Wrath is Manifest. I think.

"I don't suppose anybody wrote down a passcode anywhere?" Gabe queried over the comm network.

[Destro_Yersul]

The journal was written in an especially spidery hand, and looked like it was half notes and half personal log. Solomon had been right on the first guess, though - the one-man tent belonged to Raltus. The cogitator was apparently the man's personal unit, mentioned once in the earlier pages. Raltus seemed a little paranoid, for some reason: He'd changed the codes on the shuttle's hatches, and gene-locked his cogitator so nobody could get at them without his say-so. Skimming over the rest of the journal, other items popped up here and there which also drew interest.

The half of the book that was filled with notes was, largely, something Solomon had already seen. Raltus had been diligently taking down readings from the instruments, and doing what looked like a lot of very complicated mathematical calculations with them, all to service some higher end: they were here looking for something.

Raltus' Notes:

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Arrived on Klybo today, no trouble from the navy. R.A.'s funds smoothed things with the locals, authorities and lowlifes both - managed to secure some of the latter to use as guards and assistance. Went through a lot of money getting to this point, can't turn back now. Hope the colliquialisms about the planet don't hold true for us.

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1

Today, made landfall, set up the camp. Lug proving to be invaluable. Had my doubts about bringing an Ogryn, but the more durable equipment gets shifted so much faster with him around. Drake insisted we set up his medicae tent first. Didn't argue. Can't afford too many injuries. Brought out that and the Tauros, started scouting. Didn't want to get everything set up if we needed to move far. Had to set up the Augur, too.

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Found the cave network I was hoping for. Still there, after all this time. Is the Nul Codex still inside? If not, this whole expedition has been a waste of time and resources. Told the servitors to start drilling while we moved camp and set up a little more permanently.

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1

Broke through today. Upper levels of cavern natural stone. Ran cables from the generator to power luminators. Servitors can see in the dark, but the workers can't. Hollowed out a number of side-rooms for additional storage, began bringing more supplies from moon. R.A. has warned me to be careful. No telling what's on the lower levels. As if I don't know that.

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1

Found something. Dark stone, not like the natural formations. Jessamine assures me the stria are wrong for natural stone. Some of the walls have designs on them. Embellishment, would be my guess. Took some tracings of them for Jessamine. Matches what we know. Codex must have been here, maybe still is. Well hidden, if that's the case. Wild chase across half the sector for it isn't enough, apparently. We're close, now.

---

1

Success at last. Paid the grunts extra to keep quiet about this. We'll need more equipment, though. The Codex is larger than suspected. Have ordered its chamber cleared out so we can find out how to remove it, or activate it where it is. Sent both shuttles up for supplies, only one came back. Not going to lose all the tools it was carrying. Ordered them collected, put them in the storage chamber. Will send them back up later. More important things now. Lost a couple of the workers, nothing Drake could do about it. More where they came from anyways.

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1

Think we've found out where to turn it on. Will begin testing soon.

That was the last line. If anything had been done past then, Raltus hadn't thought to commit it to writing.