Sea of Stars - IC III

[Destro_Yersul]

As they went through the place, something about this particular murder as opposed to the others became clear. This one hadn't been a meticulously planned, carefully orchestrated crime that was intended to be as close to perfect as possible. This one, the Stalker hadn't been worried so much about someone caring enough to do a thorough investigation. This was a smash and grab. In, out, get the job done, tie up the loose ends.

Unfortunately for the Stalker, this meant that they'd gone through the place in a hurry, broken everything accessible, and not been as rigourous as they might have done. The first breakthrough was Echo noticing that one of the wall panels was inset slightly, and a pipe that ran down it wasn't actually connected to anything. Pulling on that made the whole panel slide open, revealing a ladder. The space at the bottom, which had apparently served as a combination living and monitoring space, was undisturbed. It was lit only by red emergency lighting, and the screens on the walls were unpowered, taken out by the same sabotage that had cut off the cameras, but the datastacks that backed up the recordings were intact. Anika checked the tiny kitchen space, only to find it was mostly just filled with stacks of ration bars. Ravia, though, was able to reroute the power through a secondary line. The emergency lights snapped off, replaced by harsh white flourescence, and the cogitators and screens powered up with a hum.

Upstairs, the Rings were treated to the same return of power. A black box on the wall, that everyone had previously just taken to be a junction box, lit up. A timer appeared on a small screen, five minutes counting down...