Unknown Regions Salvage (Open)

[Alena Reckar]

Alena followed Wan Min off of the bridge and into one of the corridors branching into the aft of the cruiser. The fighting had clearly grown most intense in areas of the ship like this one. Along the way, Alena documented the vessel via a holocam installed in her helmet. She didn't want to miss a thing, and thought a recorded history would be just as important as one expressed through artifacts. Alena glanced at Minnie as the woman deactivated a dual-bladed lightsaber and tossed her the large cylindrical object; it was much longer than the lightsaber she'd found, and intact. Alena had tried to reactivate the one in her hands, but the weapon had only contained a residual charge and was entirely spent. She stowed the new lightsaber in her bag along with the first one, and followed Wan Min into a large cavernous area that appeared to have once been a laboratory of some kind. The chamber was curiously bereft of actual equipment, but there were storage containers everywhere. Maybe we'll find something of use to Armand. Alena pondered, suddenly curious as to how the tall man was holding up.
She turned her attention to the pleasant sound of Wan Min's voice in her ear, though the woman's tones had grown rough and hazardous. "What's that?" Alena asked as Min was looking through a sheaf of flimsi forms in her hand. "Mister Ornil, whatever you are doing to the fusion reactor stop immediately. We've found what this ship was carrying, it's a Sith manufactured viral hemorrhagic fever. If we turn on the power right now it might activate the lab equipment storing it. Hold off on finishing the repairs to the fusion reactor until we can get Mister Temi down here to inspect the equipment."
Alena felt a lump grow in her throat. She stepped hurriedly to Wan Min's side and placed a gloved hand on the other woman's arm. "Baby we can't keep that stuff around. It's got to go. Burn it, expose it to vacuum, whatever it takes, but we can't take it with us, you know that." Alena seriously doubted Wan Min would attempt such a thing knowing that a bioweapon was involved, but she didn't want to take the chance. The last thing the Galaxy needed was a pandemic to handle, and there was no way of knowing if the Sith had tailored the virus to attack a specific collection of species.

[member="DasGeneral"] [member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Piraiba]

"Piraiba, vod'ika," responded the Togorian who referred to Purdii as 'little brother' in Mandalorian. "You may follow Piraiba if you wish."

The Togorian didn't know Prudii personally, but the fact that he appeared to be a Mandalorian did do well to ease the feline's mind some. He had been brought into that culture when his father adopted him. Then years later he had joined the Deathwatch Mandalorians that had broken off from the main faction. The Deathwatch later faded into the recesses of history, but Piraiba survived on and wore his armor proudly. Well he wore it proudly when not parading around in a borrowed EVA suit on an old derelict hammerhead death trap. Right now it rested on the floor of the locker room in Lenix's ship.

It wasn't long before Wan Min was back on the move and Piraiba casually put his carbine over his shoulder and followed her. Shortly after she discovered more lightsabers and activated a green jedi saber.

"This is wrong. There shouldn't be more than a few of the Jedi and Sith. The rest of these bodies should all be troopers."

Why had the concentration of force users been so strong? Then Wan found a red lightsaber and tested it out before tossing it to Alena.

"Red is for intimidation. Piraiba does not depend upon color," chimed in the Togorian casually as Wan Min had hardly even missed a beat during her lightsaber find.

Soon they were upon the blast door that she wanted him to open. The creature reached out and touched it before stopping with a frown.

"There is great darkness here..."

A moment passed before curiosity finally drove the cat push the blast door open. Inside the brains of the operation started to pour over the cargo, and made the discovery about the Sith biological weapon.

"We must destroy the ship. The cost for this is higher than the value of your salvage. There will be another hammer head."

He wasn't one to immediately dismiss mass murder, but biological weapons were the cowards way to waging warfare. He disagreed with the tactics of those that had created this weapon.

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min nodded at Alena's statement, "I know Ale, I'm just concerned that the storage containers might be booby trapped by the Republic Navy technicians who set this storage area up. But, without power we might be safe," Min said. She looked down at her new Jedi lightsaber and looked over to the storage containers. She knew what to do.

"Alright, let's go ahead and sever all of the power conduits connecting to the lab equipment. They're relatively easy to spot, since the cables are all running along the ground here. Everyone, go out and grab a lightsaber if you don't have one, we're going to sever the power cables running to the equipment. We have to destroy this stuff, Mister Piraiba is correct. But I don't want to destroy the ship if we don't have to. Let's see if we can't cut a hole into the side of the cargo bay and start chucking this stuff out into space. Puncture a hole in the top of the storage container, vent this chit into vacuum, and toss the storage containers out," she said. She didn't want to lose a find like this, but if Piraiba was correct then she'd have to make do with salvaging historical artifacts and a few droids. She activated her lightsaber and walked over to the lab equipment. She shoved the green lightsaber up to the hilt into the bottom of the first lab tube and dragged it up as high as she could reach, hoping to hit all of the storage cells.

"Everyone get to work. Once we get all of them, we'll have Mister Armand come down and run a scan on the cargo bay. If we're negative for viruses or infectious materials, then we're good to go. If not, then we need to find a way to disinfect our suits and get the hell off this wreck. But I've never heard of a virus that can survive exposure to hard vacuum. Let's get to work," Min said in a worried, frantic tone.

 

[Alena Reckar]

Alena made it a point of taking Wan Min aside for a moment after she handed out her orders. After switching to a private channel, she spoke, "Hey, relax okay. Slow down a bit. We're in control of the situation, we don't have to worry." Alena smiled through her visor. "Now let's get started clearing out our prize, there's no way we're letting this one go." She began helping collect specimen containers and disposing of their contents while others got to work severing the power supply cables.

[member="DasGeneral"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min relaxed for a moment. "I know we're in control, but I just don't want to lose this ship. This is the archaeological find of a lifetime Ale, I've never seen a ship this intact before from this era that wasn't in a museum or a private fleet. I'm worried that this might not be a good sign if we're going to find ourselves a ship to replace the Star's End with. What if this whole fleet was carrying bio-weapons back to Coruscant? Then we're going to have to get rid of it by ourselves..." Min said. She sighed hard.

"Ale, I've just never seen anything like this. There's enough hemorrhagic fever here to kill half of Selvaris. This is disturbing," Min said.

They worked for thirty minutes puncturing the storage containers. The others went to work severing power connections and puncturing the containers when they had a spare moment. By the end of the half-hour, the dangerous cargo had been vented into space, but Min didn't feel safe.

"Mister Piraiba, if you would stay here and search for any containers we missed, the rest of us are going to split up and go deck by deck, room by room and see what else is waiting for us on this ship. Keep all comm channels clear so we can report in," Min ordered.

[member="Alena"] [member="Piraiba"] [member="Lenix Ornil"] [member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Lenix Ornil]

Lenix chuckled at the Mandolorian's proposal not to threaten the big cat "Heh, he'll never get moving without me, the amount if modifications on my ship I doubt anyone knows how to fly it by now!" He chuckled, watching him greet Piraiba and wander off for a chat. "Right R5, cut the power line here, we'll need to reroute i.

Lenix listened to the chatter over the radio for a little while before he heard his name snd the command to stop fixing, which he knew was a no-brainer on a battleship. Until you know exactly what systems were activated or not, the Squib knew to keep the reactor odf until all ststem checks wrre done. Listening to the chatter about the virus, he replied rather calmy:

"Why don't you just load it all up into an escape pod whilst we're in a vaccum then de-dock the pod and salvage that seperately? Those pids are built to last, and would give the chemicals safe passage if Mr Armand Temi is interested in studying it?" He suggested. This wasn't the first time the Squib was in this situation, though the ciral threat never sounded this serious. The Reactor was fixed, and only needed one cable connection to link up and activate, and so he left the reactor room with R5 in tow to inspect the fuss

[member="Piraiba"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Alena"] [member="Verd Skirata"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min activated her comm unit. "We've already taken care of it Mister Ornil. We punctured the storage containers and vented the virus into space, it was too dangerous to keep any samples. Viral hemorrhagic fever wasn't something that we wanted to keep around or salvage. If Mister Temi wants to take a look at the med bay and the cargo hold and see if there is anything worth studying, he's welcome to do so. If you would, please go ahead and connect the power. We're in need of some light down here," Min said. She waited for Ornil's response.

[member="Lenix Ornil"]

 

[Lenix Ornil]

Lenic paused for a second "You mean you're venting it inside? Where it can contaminate the walls?" he asked, unsure of what proceedures Wan Min was undertaking "Wait, will a vaccum kill it?"

[member="DasGeneral"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min stopped and activated her comm again. "It's a virus tailor made by the Sith to attack a planetary population. From what I could tell, it wasn't made to survive in hard vacuum. We should be fine. We punctured the storage containers inside the cargo hold. I had Mister Piraiba also cut a hole in the cargo hold so he could pitch the storage containers into space. Just to be safe, we should have Mister Temi come down and run a full scan of us and the hold, though I doubt that anything will happen. Viruses aren't built to survive in vacuum," Min said.

"Just in case, don't connect the air processors or atmosphere generators yet. Let's make good and sure that the virus is dead before we start pumping air into here, alright?"

[member="Lenix Ornil"]

 

[Armand Temi]

In a carrying case, Armand brought four medpacs and laboratory supplies to take biological samples. He put a small blaster into the case as well. Once on the Hammerhead Class wreck Armand quietly followed Ornil and Piraiba. The ship was a graveyard both literally and figuratively and once inside the hatch, he carefully inspected everything both corpses and debris. The Hapan held a flashlight in his hand and his case in the other hand but with his poor night-vision, he moved much slower along than the rest of the group and soon fell behind. Once he finally caught up with the salvaging crew he quickly began to absorb the gravity of the situation. His heart began to beat anxiously but his scientist brain provided the calm rational response.

"No destroying that until I get my hands on it," he said striding over to Ms Brightsky. He set his case down and snapped it open, pulling out his laboratory equipment and set it on a table in the chamber. He didn't want to alarm the others and have them think he wanted to use the biological weapon but there was no time to explain his words or actions. He first pulled out a portable scanner and quickly scanned any containers as well as the lab. "Nothing alive," he said checking the reading. "But yes, acellular particles have been detected."
He went back over to his equipment and dug back through the contents.

"Please don't fear," he said holding up a small metallic box. "This specimen container follows the basic triple packaging system that consists of a primary sealable container wrapped with absorbent material, secondary container which is both watertight and leak-proof, and an outer shipping package."

He rose and went over to one of the cabinets where he had detected the particles. He stopped and thought for a minute, unsure whether all of their EVA suits would be enough protection if the samples weren't properly contained from the get-go. But he was afraid if he hestitated, Ms. Brightsky or her colleague Alena would stop him. He had to have at least a small sample of this rare find. Otherwise he would just be on a joyride out here with everyone and with nothing to show for it.

He opened the cabinet and with a sigh of relief said, "Good. These are all properly contained. None of us is in immediate danger." He turned to the others. "But we need to be extremely careful and yes, after I get a couple of samples it would be a wise idea to destroy this material."

He hoped no one noticed how reckless his last action was. If the containment units had been damaged they would have all been in trouble.

[member="Verd Skirata"] [member="Piraiba"] [member="Lenix Ornil"] [member="Alena"] [member="DasGeneral"]

 

[Lenix Ornil]

The Squib sighed a little "Made my job a little harder Miss, but I can get that done. Leave me a couple of minutes to unhook the atmo generators and life support. Also I should say that the O2 tanks are damaged heavily by shrapnel and there's only one left. This should give us about 2 days worth of oxygen. Though given the current circumstances of the virus, may I suggest we dock your ship via airlock and use your oxygen supply. Who knows what the re-ventilation systems have picked up and failed to process"

He was worried some of the virus may have re-circulated into the oxygen supply, and could have survived this long in the dormant, ancient air. Either way he began to disconnect the life support and vent systems before fixing the main wire and booting up the reactor. The fuel levels read a half-measure. The thing's fuel tanks had survived, but the fuel would likely have deteriorated a little since it was filled up over a millenia ago.

The ancient ship began bursting into life, though the medical room lay dark, disconnected from the grid by the Squib just incase. "Power's up, systems online. Feels like booting up a temple" he joked. The Squibs handiness with machines coming in extremely handy! R5 plugged in his data arm and began drawing readings from the ship's main computer. Surprising how certain systems never change.

[member="DasGeneral"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Min activated her comm unit once more and signaled Temi. "Mister Temi, I know you want to save some of that material, go ahead and do so. But, check the sheaf of flimsi forms next to the cabinet. That's specially grown viral hemorrhagic fever that the Sith created and the Republic captured. That stuff could be as dangerous as the Gulag Plague. According to the intelligence report in there, they wanted to use it on Corellia and it was dangerous as hell. Infectious to humanoid and non-humanoid species. I'm no molecular biologist, but it takes a special kind of evil to make a virus like that with every intent of using it. Be careful," Min said.

[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Armand Temi]

Armand startled as Ms. Brightsky's instructions channeled through the comlink embedded in his EVA suit helmet. When he caught his breath he said: "Roger that. I will be extremely cautious." He first positioned his flashlight onto a nearby table so that he could work with both hands and see what he was doing. Like a spotlight, the flashlight now shone brightly on the Hapan and the biomatter cabinet. He picked up the specimen box and with the other hand took a pair of tongs from his lab supplies. He carefully drew out another specimen box from the cabinet. This one had a metallic red color but in size and shape it looked exactly like the box he had in his possession. With the tongs, he carefully positioned it above his container and dropped it in. Then he set the container in a special wedge inside his carrying case. "I'm taking two more with me in case this first one doesn't make the journey." He followed the same procedure with slow precision as before. Once he had his second sample, he took a third and then he put his tools back and closed the case.

Armand went over to the flimsi forms to inspect the details of this hemorrhagic fever and what it was potentially going to be used for.

[member="DasGeneral"]

 

[Lenix Ornil]

The Squib heard Armand packing up the Virus and raised him on the radio "Erm, you aren't taking those on my ship without a secondary container. Put them in the Escape pod like I suggested before. I'd feel more at ease with an extra layer of protection on that stuff"

The Squib found this reasonable to himself. It was his ship he was going home in after all, and he didn't really mind whether he was legit or not in taking them, he himself was a smuggler on the side after all!

[member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min walked over to Mister Temi, grabbing the flimsi forms on the way and held them in front of her. "If I'm reading that correctly, it was supposed to be used in an aerosol form over Corellia during an attack," she read aloud as she held the clipboard out for him to look at. "According to this, they found a few...test subjects on the freighter who had been exposed to the virus. It doesn't look like they had a pleasant end," she said with a shudder. She continued to read over the forms on the clipboard, trying to see if there was any good information. "Mister Temi, I know you're a molecular biologist and this is a rare find, but please, I'm begging you, let us destroy it. The Republic had this under guard with over a dozen Jedi and had it in the middle of a task force of dozens of ships and they vented the atmosphere once the ship fell just so that the Sith couldn't have it. This stuff is dangerous and deadly. I'm sure there has to be something else on this ship that you can bring back with you," Min pleaded with him.

"I won't be responsible for someone releasing a new Gulag Plague on the galaxy by accident this time. It's highly infectious, virulent, and survived for thousands of years inside sealed containers in a destroyed Republic battleship. None of that sounds like good news to me," Min said.

[member="Armand Temi"] [member="Lenix Ornil"]

 

[Verd Skirata]

Prudii looked around until he had found two sabers himself. He made sure they still worked, one ignited a green, the other a blue. He attached them to his matte black armor, and continued onward to the rest of his group. he heard [member="Lenix Ornil"] denying to let the doctor to take the virus on his ship. "If you want I have 2 Tegaanalir light freightors, I can place them on my ship and rendezvous with you later [member="Armand Temi"]." He shrugged. "The oxygen canisters on the craft havent been cracked since I bought the ship. as the crew is all z-6 naval droids." he looked to the rest of the group, noting Brightsky's concern and then added. "All I would ask is that I will be able to ensure its safety, you would be able to study it, but I wouldn't want it being used against anyone. EVER."

 

[Armand Temi]

"Look Ms Brightsky, I do agree with you," Armand said back his tone slightly more raised. "But what you're asking me to do is akin to me asking you to come all this way and then not be able to bring back the exact relic you've searched for your whole life." The Hapan sighed and then began to pace, still holding one of the flimsi forms. He pointed at the form and faced Wan Min again. "This was to be used as a bioweapon, that is clear. But right now I can't tell if this is an organically made virus or one manufactured by a human or near-human. I will certainly need more time to study these," he huffed. "But either way I very much disagree that we should destroy all of it. The fact that it survived at all, means that the virus could be out there in the galaxy through other means. I'd like the opportunity to take the samples and study them in hopes of creating a cure. We could eliminate it now only to have this virus surface again. A cure for it is the answer."

Armand could see by her worried eyes and tense posture that he needed to provide her with more reassurance. "Ms Brightsky and Mr. Skirata, I will not board either of your ships with this hazardous material. I will take Mr. Ornil up on his offer. I will put them in the escape pod away from any of us. And I will personally transport the samples to Hapes, which is at peace and allied with the Republic. There the Queen will put the material under her protection and that all precautions are taken for the welfare of those handling the material." He motioned to the cabinet which held more of the virus samples. "The rest can be destroyed, burned, jettisoned, whatever," he said frowning. He snapped his carrying case shut and looked at Ms. Brightsky and waited for her reaction to his proposal.

[member="Lenix Ornil"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Verd Skirata"] [member="Alena"]

 

[Alena Reckar]

Alena swallowed nervously and reached into her bag. She gave Wan Min a knowing look as Armand collected his samples and plead his case. The whole situation made her extremely nervous, and felt wrong. The Gulag Plague had been bag enough, as had a hundred other illnesses before it; the bioweapons of the Yuuzhan Vong and the Kraytos virus developed by the Empire were just two of the best examples. Alena's conscious got the better of her and she stepped in front of Wan Min.
"You can't have it." She said nervously, struggling to keep the concern out of her voice. She was a lawyer, but that came from her father's side of the family. Her mother had been Mando'ad, which made her Mando'ad. It was about time she showed some strength.
"I-I'm sorry, but I can't let you take any of this. It all gets destroyed. It's not that I'm worried you'll accidentally drop it in a crowd, it's just that...well we only know you well enough to work with you. But I don't trust you well enough to not sell it, or use it, or hell, for it to not get stolen from you. No one loses anything if this stuff gets destroyed, but if it doesn't...the risks just aren't worth it."
Alena stood as firmly as she could, her hand stashed in her bag and the other on the blaster at her hip. She swallowed her fear away, Armand didn't seem to be a fighter, but he was smart, and tall and strong-looking, and Alena was worried. She understood the man's drive, and she wanted to help him find something worthy. "I saw what the Sith did to Coruscant, Armand...we have a whole field of ships here, I'm sure we can find something worth your time. I'll help you look myself."
Alena gave Wan Min a quick glance that said I've got this...sort of...Force, please help me out here.

[member="DasGeneral"] [member="Armand Temi"]

 

[Wan Min Brightsky]

Wan Min looked at her friend and back over to Temi. She thought about it for a moment. Temi has a point, if this stuff gets out into the galaxy a cure would do us more good than destroying it, she thought. But, Alena is right too. This stuff is too dangerous for us to risk it getting out, and we don't know Temi's specialty or his background. She decided to take a middle ground.

"Here's the deal, since I'm the one who put this little expedition together I'll make the call. Mister Temi is right, a cure would be better for the galaxy than anything else. Force, for all we know this might have been the progenitor of the Gulag Plague, and having a cure for that would benefit us all. But, Alena is right too, this is too dangerous. If we are going to trust you with something like this, we need more concrete proof of your qualifications to handle something this dangerous. Look around us Armand, a lot of people died to protect this disease and keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Dozens of force users died and that was before the atmosphere was vented," Min said.

"A fair compromise would be for us to agree that, for the time being, we keep all of the materials here in the cargo bay and Mister Piraiba can guard it. We'll do a thorough survey of the debris field and see what else we find. If there is nothing of value or equal worth, we will bring the ship back to Selvaris, make our contact and go through with the sale of the Hammerhead, and all of us will go with Mister Temi back to the Hapes to ensure that this bioweapon gets into the hands of responsible people. If there is something of equal or greater value out there, we vent that Sith Chit into vacuum, and Mister Temi can download the data that the Republic doctors and scientists came up with before they met their untimely deaths. That way all of us will get what we want in one way or another," Min explained.

"But know this Mister Temi: I will not hesitate to destroy that bantha chit if I think for one moment that you will go behind our backs and try to get it to any of our ships before the deal is finished, and you will be lucky if you don't end up doing a space walk of your own without a suit. That being said, the rest of this gets loaded into an escape pod except for the computers and Temi's sample, and the Star's End will drop that escape pod into the local star. Do we have a deal?"

[member="Alena"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="Verd Skirata"] [member="Lenix Ornil"]

 

[Verd Skirata]

"Woah there, calm down Vod," Prudii stepped in front of Armand, knowing that his armor could take just about any blasterbolt. "There is no need for blasters to come out. I have to agree with Armand on this one, he does have a point. If the Sith made this virus, then it is most likely still in their arsenal." He had to find a way to diffuse the situation. "I don't think this is something we need to fight over, I see both sides of this clearly have a point, and I think both parties are right." He had to have a good Idea that would work and keep the group together. "how about we destroy all but the 3 vials Armand currently has, for now, and then leave those 3 in this room. we then will come back here and discuss this later." He reached over and used his hand to smash two or three of the vials. "Heck they might even have a cure for the virus on the ship. In which case, we could mass produce it." He paused letting the idea sink in. "Whatever we decide, we need to take some time and think about our decision before we discuss this." He had to be the neutral party here, and he hoped he was neutral enough, and proposed a decent plan.
[member="Alena"] [member="Armand Temi"] [member="DasGeneral"] [member="Lenix Ornil"] [member="Piraiba"]