Horrified, he clicked through the images attached to the message. While it was impossible to tell from the images alone what had caused the carnage, none of the corpses showed any sign of external damage, and Hux couldn’t look away. One image showed a Stormtrooper lying face-up in a puddle of his own congealed blood, the source of which seemed to be his nose and mouth. Another, a glassy-eyed petty officer slumped over her console, which had gotten the brunt of the blood flow from her mouth. Two IT technicians, who seemed to have been trying to comfort each other in their last moments, their death spasms locking them into each other, unable to tell where the blood from one ended and the blood from the other began. A medical officer, collapsed on his side, the surgical mask he’d been wearing dyed completely red. A lieutenant who’d died in the bath still sitting nude in the tub, the water turned red with blood that poured from her mouth.
The image album went on and on, getting more graphic and disturbing as the images wore on. It appeared that whatever had caused this had happened very suddenly- so many pictures showed people who’d been going about their mundane daily lives when they’d met their end unexpectedly, and through such a bizarre mechanism. Death wasn’t exactly unheard of in the line of duty for First Order members, but death from disease, or whatever this was, was fairly unusual. Certainly on a massive scale like this. Clicking back to the original text of the message, Hux skimmed through, looking for anything that might have made more sense, or at least provided an explanation, but he came up empty.
“…no external trauma was visible on any of the bodies…”
”…no known survivors at this time…”
”…medical officers from both the Exonerator and the Rectifier conducted autopsies on a random sample of victims from across rank, age, and gender. Autopsies did not reveal anything that would serve as a definitive cause of death, although all cases did show extensive damage to the internal organs, especially the lungs and linings of the nasal cavities…”
”…no known pathogens or chemical agents match the damage seen in these bodies…”
”…incident is being recorded as a climate control system malfunction; other ships are advised to monitor their climate control systems closely and evacuate if errors arise.”
Hux stared as he read that last line. A climate control system malfunction? What kind of idiots did they take him for? Climate control was one of the most stable technologies that existed- that had existed for hundreds, probably thousands of years. It just was simply impossible to be a space-faring society without useful climate systems. The idea that one would fail so catastrophically and kill everyone onboard a Star Destroyer, of all things was simply absurd. Clearly something else was going on there.
His first thought was that it must have been an insidious plot by the Resistance. He knew that the organization’s precursor, the Rebellion, did not think twice about murdering children or ordering airstrikes on refugee camps- his Uncle Nico had been in his first year at the Imperial Academy and they’d killed him, hadn’t they? And hadn’t his mother been injured in a New Republic bombing run? But then logic reasserted itself. Despite what had happened before he was born, he logically knew that the Resistance most likely was not likely to resort to biological weapons- there was too much room for error (and the possibility of infecting yourself). And they also did not seem to approve of indiscriminate attacks like that, instead preferring to use precise strikes to remove whatever they deemed to be a threat at that time.
Granted, it was possible that the Resistance had deemed the crew of the Annihilator to be a threat that merited quick removal, but somehow Hux still doubted it was something they had done. It just didn’t seem their style.
But that left even more troubling questions about who or what had caused the deaths. And maybe it was simply the fact he’d met Ben, who claimed to have been tortured through a purposely-induced, protracted illness that had the same symptoms, but somehow Hux couldn’t stop his suspicions from turning bit by bit towards the Supreme Leader.
Still, that made even less sense than an attack by the Resistance. Why would the Supreme Leader attack his own people?
Re: FILL: Ghost in the Machine [19/?]
The image album went on and on, getting more graphic and disturbing as the images wore on. It appeared that whatever had caused this had happened very suddenly- so many pictures showed people who’d been going about their mundane daily lives when they’d met their end unexpectedly, and through such a bizarre mechanism. Death wasn’t exactly unheard of in the line of duty for First Order members, but death from disease, or whatever this was, was fairly unusual. Certainly on a massive scale like this.
Clicking back to the original text of the message, Hux skimmed through, looking for anything that might have made more sense, or at least provided an explanation, but he came up empty.
“…no external trauma was visible on any of the bodies…”
”…no known survivors at this time…”
”…medical officers from both the Exonerator and the Rectifier conducted autopsies on a random sample of victims from across rank, age, and gender. Autopsies did not reveal anything that would serve as a definitive cause of death, although all cases did show extensive damage to the internal organs, especially the lungs and linings of the nasal cavities…”
”…no known pathogens or chemical agents match the damage seen in these bodies…”
”…incident is being recorded as a climate control system malfunction; other ships are advised to monitor their climate control systems closely and evacuate if errors arise.”
Hux stared as he read that last line. A climate control system malfunction? What kind of idiots did they take him for? Climate control was one of the most stable technologies that existed- that had existed for hundreds, probably thousands of years. It just was simply impossible to be a space-faring society without useful climate systems. The idea that one would fail so catastrophically and kill everyone onboard a Star Destroyer, of all things was simply absurd. Clearly something else was going on there.
His first thought was that it must have been an insidious plot by the Resistance. He knew that the organization’s precursor, the Rebellion, did not think twice about murdering children or ordering airstrikes on refugee camps- his Uncle Nico had been in his first year at the Imperial Academy and they’d killed him, hadn’t they? And hadn’t his mother been injured in a New Republic bombing run? But then logic reasserted itself. Despite what had happened before he was born, he logically knew that the Resistance most likely was not likely to resort to biological weapons- there was too much room for error (and the possibility of infecting yourself). And they also did not seem to approve of indiscriminate attacks like that, instead preferring to use precise strikes to remove whatever they deemed to be a threat at that time.
Granted, it was possible that the Resistance had deemed the crew of the Annihilator to be a threat that merited quick removal, but somehow Hux still doubted it was something they had done. It just didn’t seem their style.
But that left even more troubling questions about who or what had caused the deaths. And maybe it was simply the fact he’d met Ben, who claimed to have been tortured through a purposely-induced, protracted illness that had the same symptoms, but somehow Hux couldn’t stop his suspicions from turning bit by bit towards the Supreme Leader.
Still, that made even less sense than an attack by the Resistance. Why would the Supreme Leader attack his own people?