The Surface of Steinhull, The Steinhull ruins

Sinn'Are'Sen paces the compartment methodically in a search for evidence that he could use4 to determine exactly what had transpired. The floor turrets were pointed in multiple directions and the security automata had fallen with their autocannon pointing every which way. Both the floor turrets and automata showed the same kind of grievous injuries.

“Dara Tonn?”

“I'm still here.”

“I think I'm going to need your mathematical calculation ability. Can you trace shell paths back from their impact points?”

“Ballistic calculations to recreate the fight trajectory? Not a bad Idea Sinn, even if it is right out of a crime fiction. Certainly I can do that, given a clear impact point. The injuries to those security automata preclude that sort of calculation on account of their injuries being explosive craters. The same goes for some of the damage to the floor turrets, such as that one in the corner to the left of the entry hatch. Looks like a blown out plasma flask that took a good chunk of the rest of the turret with it. The rest... I can do some from your existing footage but I'll need more. How about I project what I have onto a display on your communicator and you walk about to get the rest of the footage? I'll direct you as needed to anything missing.”

“Sounds good to me Dara Tonn. Grid search from one corner?”

“Either that or run about from body to floor turret to bulkhead.”

“That sounds like a lot of extra legwork just to miss something. Let's go with a grid search.”

“Compartment projection coming your way. Pick a corner and let's get started.”

Sinn started in the corner to the left of the entry hatch and looked at every projectile impact he could see within a five meter space. Then he repeated with the next five meter square towards the entrance hatch. Again and again Sinn repeated this process until he had covered every square centimeter of the chamber.

“Dara Tonn, this compartment is... we'll it's laid out like an equation. The compartment is forty five meters on a side and nine meters high exactly. Each five meter square area has exactly twenty five floor tiles in a five by five grid, making them exactly one meter square. Each bench is exactly nine tiles long and has one tile between it and the next bench in both row and column. The columns along the bulkheads are every nine meters on center. The central altar, for lack of a better term, is exactly five meters on a side and protrudes five meters from the floor in the exact center of the compartment. Even the path in this chamber adhere to the pattern: three meter wide central paths horizontally and vertically across the compartment in line with both the hatches and the altar, a five meter path around the altar itself, a one meter path around the perimeter of the compartment and between each bench... Every element was laid out in a perfect repeating pattern by whomever designed this station and the rest of the compartments, passageways, and crawlspaces were adjusted to make the needed space.

“The only exceptions are the floor turrets and the security automata. There are only eight floor turrets them, two in each of the 'aisles' arranged so that the one towards the center can fire over the one towards the hatch, but the pattern suggests the ninth would be right where the altar is. Likewise there are forty three security automata, not forty five or fifty.”

“If you count the two you passed on your way to this compartment Sinn then there are exactly forty five security automata. There are also two more down by each of the other hatches leading to this compartment.”

“That is a really heavy defense for one odd compartment. I wonder why.”

“Perhaps the altar will have some information? It doesn't match any in the data available to me. It's too tall and has no way for a human to climb on top of it to be seen by all in the chamber. It must serve some function, even if only ceremonial, but I can't fathom what.”

Sinn walks closer to the altar in the center of the compartment and examines it. The bird and cog insignia is etched large on each face of the altar and it has no visible seams along the edges or where it meets the deck plates.

“I don't fancy my chances of moving one of those benches to use as a ladder.”

“Time for Wall Walk again Sinn? It does seem quite useful in the traversal of difficult terrain.”

“I think I'm going to use Float this time. I know Wall Walk will work but I want to try out Float to see just how far I can push it. Am I limited to only a few centimeters above the ground? A meter? Can I go as high as my will permits? Can I use it to fly in a limited manner?”

“That all sounds like useful information to know, but must you test it here? I'd recommend testing it outside of the Steinhull ruins, say near my hull, where I can use more sensors then the dinky earpiece camera to see what is going on.”

“Ehh, you are right Dara Tonn. Probably not wise to risk it. Wall Walk it is.”

Sinn concentrates, chants, and activates Wall Walk. He then slowly steps onto the side of the altar and walks to the top face. There he has to crouch down and make an awkward transition to the top face before releasing his concentration on Wall Walk.

“Ok, I made it to the top of the Altar. There is a control station here or at least a pulpit of some sort. Three meter diameter cog-shaped indentation into the cube, strait walled, to a depth of three meters. Looks to be filled with control terminals but no displays. No remains preset.”

“Check for holographic emitters? I'm still processing shell trajectories.”

“I don't see any projector nodes, just four sockets of some sort. Data ports perhaps? One of the terminals does have a larger socket in it with more ports. One looks like power, the others are probably data if I had to guess. looks like it held a communicator sized device.”

“Everything else in this chamber fits into a pattern. Are there any other terminals that look similar?”

Sin drops into the center of the terminals, using the one with the empty slot as a brief stop on the way down. He stares at the control terminals then steps back to the far side off the station and cranes his head upwards.

“Well, that's peculiar. These terminals all have two layers of interfaces. One at one meter off the ground and the second over my head at two meters. Still no displays, and the angles mean that you can't even access the upper bank of terminals from down here. Whoever operated this station would need cybernetic augmentations or an inhuman physique to reach everything. Moreover the lower bank of terminals looks to be a duplicate of the upper set. I've got an 'Empire communicator' on the lower back of terminals. Trying to extract it now.”

“Going to make a log entry about this location?”

“Probably should, but I want the contents of this 'communicator' and your analysis of the shell trajectories in here first. We might even be able to put together a partial sequence of events for the combat that happened here.”

“Going for a full report instead of fragmentary updates for once?”

“This room deserves it. I also want a chance to parse any data from this 'communicator' before presenting it to the RSC.”