Fate of the Reasoner

[Fab]

Important Event
Shocking discovery

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Almost end of shift. A few workers at the life support compartment are tasked with opening the mysterious sealed bulkhead that was found yesterday. They look for an entrance but they do not manage to find one, as expected from a conventional smuggler's hold. They take their plasma cutters and blow torches to make their own entrance. After a few minutes of careful thermal slicing, they make a hole wide enough for a fully equipped man to pass through. One of the workers volunteers to go inside the bulkhead and report his findings. He goes in and powers his flashlight, revealing a room that looks like a small self-contained habitat, commonly found in long range scout ships. Scanning around, he finds several bunk beds, storage spaces, surfaces for seating... and, for his surprise, corpses. He gasps and becomes wide-eyed in fear. Reluctantly, he makes way to take a closer look. five bodies in advanced stages of decomposition are found: Two adult males, one adult female, two children. He backs off after seeing their decomposed and deformed faces, letting out a scream. He leaves the compartment in a hurry by carelessly jumping out of the compartment. His coworkers anxiously ask about what he found. He takes a while to catch his breath, and reveals his findings.

Everyone is shocked and in disbelief. Another worker takes his flashlight and shines it against the filthy interior of the compartment. The terrifying sight makes him gasp and take a step backwards, which makes him trip and fall on his back. He is helped up, and some of them begin to panic. Despite being Corsairs, no civilian is prepared to control their emotions in such situations. The most well-collected in the group calm down the rest, reassuring their colleagues. After all of them have their emotions in control, they ask each other what they should do. The first thing they decide is to keep their discovery a secret, and make up a lie. They judged that the ISA will surely cover up the event and apply consequences to the witnesses. Afterwards, they plan on exploring the compartment on another day. "We deserve a few answers" - one of them says to the group, before closing and concealing the hole. They return to the foreman, and all report the same thing: "The compartment was a repurposed bulkhead to store toxic byproducts of the life support system".