<pre>{{{[log>life_support]\n \n> Nonstandard pressure readings detected. (warning 1/3)\n> Nonstandard pressure readings detected. (warning 2/3)\n> Nonstandard pressure readings detected. Distress beacon is on standby. (warning 3/3)\n> Activating pressure alarm.\n> ...\n> Alarm manually deactivated.\n> Nonstandard pressure readings detected. Activating distress beacon.\n> ...\n> Network interface removed.\n> Sensor interface removed.\n> Power interface removed.\n> Now running on emergency backup battery.\n> ...\n> Shutting down.}}}</pre>
The bodies of Sunborn Avians command a high price on the interstellar black market. Groups of Grounded looters raid tomb-ships in hopes of finding corpses to sell to collectors - when the bodies in the flying crypts are too decomposed, they settle for the material treasures contained within.
The Restless Sparrow's incursion into Sunborn-controlled space was a routine misson. Looting of tomb-ships is a common activity undertaken by adolescent Avians from some of the more extremist Grounded sects - the ritualistic destruction and theft of religious artifacts is seen as a coming of age. Missions of this sort rarely involve any risk, and the crew of young Avians flying the Restless Sparrow could have never imagined the events that would befall them after boarding the tomb-ship A Sullen Remembrance.\n\nAccording to an incident report published by the Avos Skyport Authority, the Restless Sparrow's distress beacon was activated during the Avian Midyear Worship Festival, an annual religious rite in which captured Grounded are sacrificed for Kluex. Because of this, it is likely that the mission was intended to "kick the hornet's nest", so to speak, but ultimately, it ended up revealing a greater menace that would pose a threat to all Avians, Grounded or not.\n\nAs the Restless Sparrow entered Avian space, emotions onboard were running high. One crewmember wrote of the captain's increasing paranoia, and of her trepidation at boarding a sacred vessel for the purpose of thievery. Despite the captain's paranoia, the Grounded ship managed to find its way to the Sullen Remembrance uncontested and unnoticed - likely due to the fact that celebrating the Midyear Worship Festival is mandatory for all followers of Kluex. The crew journal, recovered from the shipwreck, speaks of the excitement within the captain's nest and amongst the crew at this stroke of luck, which was to continue for the short term: the airlocks on the Sullen Remembrance, though new, had been left unlocked, and the ship was a newer model that hadn't suffered the slow pressure bleed endemic amongst older tomb-ship designs.\n\n<strong>[[Next|All Aboard]]</strong>
<pre>Timeline of events aboard the Restless Sparrow\n\n[-10:32] The Restless Sparrow docks with Avian tomb-ship A Sullen Remembrance.\n[-10:30] Boarding crew enters airlock.\n[-10:25] Boarding crew [[enters|Doors]] the Sullen Remembrance.\n[-10:03] A crewmember, while looting a crypt, finds the still-fresh corpse of a Sunborn.\n[-10:00] The corpse is retrieved, with plans to sell it on the [[interstellar black market|Corpse Sale]].\n[-09:22] Crew [[returns|Doors]] to Restless Sparrow with corpse in tow.\n[-09:15] Sunborn corpse placed in holding bay.\n[-08:03] The Restless Sparrow undocks with A Sullen Remembrance.\n[-08:02] The Restless Sparrow engages warp drive.\n[-07:37] Agaran spores within Sunborn corpse activate from movement and heat.\n[-06:59] Spore clusters erupt from Sunborn corpse, entering ventilation system to breed.\n[-06:04] Ventilation system is now completely coated with sentient Agaran fungi.\n[-03:20] Fungi begins building Agaran, using Sunborn corpse as a starting point.\n[-00:22] Fungi colonies begin digesting metal from ventilation system, converting it into gaseous form.\n[-00:04] Agaran wakes up.\n[-00:02] [[Life support system|Life Support]] notices nonstandard pressure readings.\n[-00:01] Improperly secured airlock doors fail. [[Distress beacon|Distress Beacon]] activated.\n[ 00:00] Catastrophic hull blowout.\n[+00:01] Agaran manually deactivates life support systems.\n[+00:20] All hands lost.\n[+00:56] Fungi colony patches hull breach.\n[+00:59] Fungi colony begins work on creating more Agarans, using corpses of Avian crew.\n[+02:00] Shipboard recording systems fail.</pre>
<pre>{{{[log>distress_beacon]\n \n> Standby mode activated. (reason: nonstandard pressure readings)\n> Ship alarm detected.\n> ...\n> Distress beacon activated. (reason: nonstandard pressure readings)\n> Polling captain's nest for input.\n> Input detected. (captain's nest input: FLY AWAY)\n> ...\n> No further input detected.\n> Transmitting distress signal.\n>> AVIAN SHIP DESIGNATION "THE RESTLESS SPARROW"\n>> CATASTROPHIC HULL BREACH HAS OCCURRED\n>> REQUESTING ASSISTANCE FOR POSSIBLE SURVIVORS\n>> MAY KLUEX SAVE US}}}</pre>
At this point, the colonies went dormant, allowing energy to be spent on something more important: namely, the synthesis of an autonomous Agaran using the Sunborn corpse as a template. This took approximately three hours, and when construction was nearly complete, the ventilation colonies reactivated and began digesting the metals around them, converting the materials to raw energy and outputting a mixture of various gases as a byproduct. This had the effect of increasing the pressure inside the hull, though none of the crew noticed.\n\nTwenty-two minutes later, a faulty airlock blew out, and the ship drained itself of air. Half of the crew was killed immediately by flying debris. The other half weren't as lucky - they managed to find their way to emergency life support systems, which were turned off just one minute later by the Agaran now roaming the ship's halls. Less than half an hour after the hull blowout, all hands on the Restless Sparrow had been lost.\n\nMy sources for the events following this are sketchy at best; the shipboard recording systems failed two hours after the unfortunate events onboard. However, there was one action by a crewmember that shook me deeply. In his last moments, the captain of the Restless Sparrow had the foresight to broadcast a warning to all who might come across the ship, hiding an encoded transmission in the distress beacon's firmware:\n\n<strong><em>FLY AWAY</em></strong>\n\n\n\nSupplementary material:\n* [[System Logs]]\n* [[Incident Report]]\n* [[Crew Journal]]\n* [[Timeline]]
The boarding party consisted of four Avians, hand-picked by the captain. None carried weapons, correctly assuming that the lack of challenge boarding meant that no guards were posted within. The crew first went to the main crypt, collecting artifacts, then began scouring auxiliary rooms. It was in one of these that they made a fortuitous discovery: the still-fresh body of a Sunborn in full ceremonial regalia. The captain, watching through head-mounted cameras, ordered that the body be collected and brought back to the Restless Sparrow - the corpses of Sunborn are incredibly rare and sell for huge amounts on the interstellar black market. In spite of the body's value, this was the decision that would seal the Restless Sparrow's fate, for unbeknownst to the captain, the Sunborn had died from a mysterious fungal illness.\n\nAfter the corpse was brought back to the ship along with the rest of the loot, it was placed in the supply hold in a room adjacent to the one containing the ship's raw food supplies. The crew moved on to examining their spoils and monitoring the scanners for incoming guard ships (though, ultimately, none came). Meanwhile, the ship's downfall stewed in the hold - the fungal colony embedded in the Sunborn's lungs activated and began devouring the body for nutrients. Within minutes, the corpse was an unrecognizable mass of sentient fungi, and after approximately half an hour, the colony was sufficiently evolved to spread spores throughout the ship's ventilation system.\n\nWith the crew unaware of the infestation, the spore colonies spread unheeded, and an hour later every ventilation duct in the ship was coated in sentient fungus.\n\n<strong>[[Next|The Beginning of the End]]</strong>
<pre>{{{[log>doors]\n \n> Docking sequence initiated. (partner: "unknown", missing from ship database)\n> Docking sequence successful.\n> Checking internal pressure of "unknown"...\n> ...\n> Internal pressure check successful.\n> Pressure difference nominal.\n> Preparing airlock. (occupants: 4)\n> Airlock occupants transferred to "unknown".\n> ...\n> Crew returning.\n> Preparing airlock. (occupants: 5)\n> Airlock occupants transferred to "The Restless Sparrow".\n> ...\n> Going to sleep.}}}</pre>
FLY AWAY: How the Restless Sparrow was lost
by Charlton McVicar, for the Starbound Chronicle
<pre>Log filed at [-52:38] by crewmember Cloudfoot</pre>\nI'm nervous. everyone is. usually they come back with tales of exciting escapes from angry guard-ships but there's been nothing, not a single peep, and it's getting on our nerves.\n\nthe captain is getting surly.\n\nbefore I went to sleep we did airlock drills, wearing our pressure suits and going through the locking and unlocking procedures. I was pretty good, I think. pricklebeak still needs to practice a bit more because he almost left it open and vented the ship. whoops. it's a good thing we're practicing this stuff because if it happened in a real situation we'd be birdseed.
[[Life Support]]\n[[Distress Beacon]]\n[[Doors]]
VIA AVOS SKYPORT AUTHORITY:\n\nAt 8th Hex, during the Midyear Worship Festival, the Avos Skyport Authority intercepted a distress signal from a ship identifying itself as The Restless Sparrow. The message claimed that the ship had suffered a catastrophic hull blowout due to unknown circumstances.\n\nDue to the ship's inclusion on the Skyport Authority's list of Grounded vessels, no action was taken.