[Admiral Maximilian Keres has assumed control of the Flagship Creeping Darkness.] The ship's displays flashed in every corridor and hangar.
It didn't change much for Max, it was just an assignment of powers, but now when he issued an order through the link that Nico had established to the ship, it actually followed his directions. That was a pleasant change.
While most of the ship was still broken or malfunctioning, he did have some sensors back online now that the ship's computer was operational, and there was a chance that they could get even more of them working in the near future.
One interesting thing that the sensors recorded was the last known position of the crew members. With the ship having been offline for so long, most of the data was corrupted or lost, but there was still a fair bit of it left for them to find.
As expected, a significant number of the crew signatures were last in the engineering sector, and the four they had found in the bridge were clearly marked, but there were still quite a few that were marked as last in the bays near where they were parked.
Those sectors had been fully searched now, and there was no sign of casualties, so this must have been the lifeboat parking, of whatever sort they had on this vessel. If everyone was last seen here, and now the bays were empty, this must have been shuttle or lander parking and not the mechanical bays as Max had thought when he saw the marks of hastily removed heavy equipment.
There was only one more concerning area, a spot in the interior that like the engineering sector had a large number of staff marked as present there at the last recorded point.
So, here we shall remain, entombed among the stars with our battle brothers. If you should find us in salvageable condition, we would request the traditional cremation ceremony. If not, then sending our bones into the void will suffice.
An open mind seeks out its own ruin.
Repair Master Navarro]
Max had the drones preserve the note in their storage compartment for later analysis, and then opened the door to the sauna. At first, nothing seemed to be out of order, and there were no signs of occupancy, but once the drones moved to the actual sauna rooms, orderly ranks of golden skinned crew members, wearing nothing but the traditional towels for a sauna visit, filled the benches.
They hadn't died of rapid decompression, that was a much more gruesome death, and they didn't show signs of slow suffocation either. What might have killed them was a mystery for the moment, with poisonous gas in the sauna's steamer being the most likely culprit.
That would explain why they had gathered here in particular. It was one of the few places where they could get the job done reliably and not have to find out what the self-destruct function felt like.
"Well, that's one more mystery solved. The rest of the crew did evacuate, that's why there are so few here to find. For now, we will leave these ones in place, but when it's time to start bringing the ship online, we will give them a proper funeral." Max informed the others.
The Innu nodded in understanding, while Nico handed Max a note full of hand scribbled numbers.
298 casualties found so far, out of an estimated total crew of 100 million.
That was impressive.
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