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[X] Observe that to attack someone with the intent to kill is both immoral and useless as you'd just be resurrected, and thus a double sin.

"It would be a doubled sin for you to slay me," you say. "First, the sin of the destruction of structure and spreading of chaos. And second, the sin of wasted work, for I would surely be resurrected again."

The girl stares blankly at you, still brandishing her makeshift (and distinctly unintimidating) looking tool, then presses back even harder against the door. "Anti-Entropism! Enfolding Lady! I've been kidnapped by anti-entropic extremists! You stay away from me! I'm not letting you upload me into some fake low energy virtual 'paradise'! I know all about you people!"

You blink. Yes. That was anti-entropist thought. Does that mean then that you're an anti-entropist? You're not sure, you felt there might have been an ironic lilt to your words. And how would it square with your earlier lack of care about nanotech accidents? "... either way, I'm not going to hurt you. I seriously doubt I'm a captor. I think my memory is wiped. I can barely remember anything."

"That's a common tactic with extremist cells and captives. You mind wipe one of your own agents and then put them among the prisoners, make them trust that person, then, when the time comes, WHAM! Memories re-integrated! An instant traitor! Well I'm not falling for it! The edges of this tool are sharp and last year I competed in the 933481 quadrant student kendo competition at an all district level! I'll cut you!"

You sit down on a sofa.It does not seem to make the girl relax. You're not sure what to do about this, so you check the local noosphere for activity. The network is fully down. There's no locational ping, and nothing beyond this room. Several long seconds pass before a third door opens and another woman steps into view. She's a hundred and eighty centimeters and extremely fit, with void-black hair in a short pixie cut and absolute neutral-white skin.. The dyson girl turns towards her and repositions into a new furthest corner between the pair of you, keeping her makeshift knife pointed at the newcomer. She can, like you (how?), tell what a combat-rated body looks like.. Like the pair of you she's wearing a white and black spraysuit, a little difficult to see where it meets her matching monochrome features.

"You can put the knife down," she says to the dyson girl, "it can't hurt me. And I'm not the infiltrator, because like you I still remember who I am. Mirareki, journalist."

The dyson girl looks between the pair of you, briefly pleading with her eyes each time before realising the person she's looking at is also part of the problem.

"Alternatively," Mirareki says, taking a half-step and raising an open hand, "I can take the toy off you and then we all wait until the tantrum stops."

"I'm - Reizay R1N." She takes a deep breath. "Student, upper phase third cycle, security representative for Amethyst Class in C24 Lily Pedagogium for number… well, you'd know all this if you could read." She sneers and glances at the design on her breastbone, before brandishing the tool in your direction and then dropping it to her side. "What about you?" she says. "Do you have a name?"

"Maybe, but I don't remember it. 'Doctor Stella Anastasius' was written on my pod. So you can call me Stella for now."

"Really now," says Mirareki., "That's interesting, because 'Ariane Nevanlinna' was written on mine, and I've never heard of her." She looks you over, suddenly intent. "Have you actually earned a doctorate though?"

"M-mine said Kata 91," Reizay says. "M-maybe they were planning to mind wipe all of us and they just only got to her!"

"I remember." You say, finding yourself inexplicably hesitant. "I remember… fire."

Reizay opens her mouth to say more and then there's a distant boom. "T-The ship is breaking up!" Reizay cringes. "Oh Enfolding Lady! These things are so unsafe! I could die and my pins will never be retrieved! I'll never be with my ancestors!"

"That wasn't breakup noises." Mirareki says, getting up. "That was an uh, maybe a harpoon?"

"If it was an harpoon, where's the explosion?" Says a new voice behind you all. You turn to see two women, both with deeply tanned skin and dark brown hair, both with identical controlled braids, both very tall. Both, in fact, identical in every particular of their two metre frames. She doesn't sound concerned so much as excited. "That was a boarding lance."

"Maybe a rescue ship?" says Reizay.

"Maybe." The newcomer says. "But none of us know what's going on so we shouldn't assume anything. I'm Luyu by the way."

"Both of you?"

"Both of me." Luyu confirms, draping over herself like a pair of big cats before sitting down while she takes a circuit of the room. "I normally run with more but I only woke up with two here." She watches herself finish her circuit at the door and punch it with a resounding but fruitless thud. "So I guess whoever's behind this doesn't think they can take more of me." You think either of her could take all three of you.

"And that leaves…" says Mirareki, looking behind you.

You realise that you knew the blue skinned woman standing calmly near her door was there but didn't decide she was a threat. She's about the same height as you are, with long, dark red hair and the blue skin of someone from one of the Black Rose clades. She walks to the centre of the room with perfect precision and perfect serenity. "I didn't want to interrupt until everything had been established. I am Aletta of the Trinity Etta. Ordained Eternalist."

"A priestess of eternity?" Luyu makes a microscopic lip curl of disdain, what might seem like an involuntary micro expression if you weren't sure she had full control of it.

–Combat bodies like the ones she's wearing, given names like Valkyrie, Amazon, and others depending on their precise make and model, are designed for the social aspects of combat as much as the physical. Where a conflict of pure destruction might be fought mostly with autonomous or teleoperated gun platforms, or simply with various species of fusion, antimatter and mass conversion bombs, the general empowerment of the population produced by modern social forms and by biotechnology, nanotechnology and ownership of the means of production has given rise to an unprecedented era of partisan warfare which only effective, highly augmented infantry can effectively deal with. Ever the Queen of the battle, troops in purpose built combat bodies are used for–

These thoughts have the feel of a lecture you once heard or a report read. It's strange. Shouldn't you be panicking about having no memories besides these jumbled flashes?

"Just so." Aletta presumably notices the calculated flinch but shows no reaction. "But I do not believe that matters now. We are in terrible danger. Shall we first try to open the door?"

"Well before I was interrupted, I almost had it," says Reizay, getting up. "Now if you'll give me a few seconds without bothering me with your unwalled freakshow, I'll get us out of here."

She crouches down by the door and gets back to work. Minutes pass. Aletta remains serene. Mirareki and Luyu fidget. There's another tremor through the ship.

"For fuck's sake," says Mirareki, getting up.

The door springs open.

"There! I told you."

There's an open hallway beyond with another door at the end, hanging partly open. A strange, complex symbol is painted above it. It draws the eye, and you feel like it should have some kind of effect but it means nothing.

Mirareki slips forward to the open door and looks in. <<Nothing moving.>> She says, the words sent with tight radio link not sound. <<Huh. We're wired with a squad link.>>

<<Should we use it? It might be tapped by whoever built these bodies!>> Reizay says. <<or something could find us with them. If they're tight beam they must be putting out a locator.>>

<<Don't think so.>> Mirareki says. <<It's a very tight low power beam. You'd need to get a receiver in between us to tap it even if you could break the encryption. We can load a new fill into it when we get the chance. They use LPI signal location bursts to track us. Very short bursts, nothing anyone could track.>>

Fill. A one time pad. LPI, low probability of intercept. Signals disguised against the constant background noise of the universe.

<<Don't worry.>> Luyu says. <<It's not as good as the link I'm using but the security is solid. Benedicts and Cacophony can't localize someone from a tight link. Not unless they get in among you.>>

Your memory doesn't tell you anything about what either of those are, but despite her best efforts Reizay looks impressed.

"Anyway it's like, a puzzle box." Mirareki says. You look inside, around her shoulder.

An echoing hangar of a room awaits, tiled in softly glowing white, full of translucent partitions and drifting geometric shapes. Primary colours pick out and categorise elements of interest, zones of concern, but hanging over it all is the pall of its obvious breakdown; lights flicker, trajectories waver.

"Hello girls!" says a jaunty synthetic voice. "Or should I say, Datura Team. I'm sure you're confused right now, but don't worry-" A symbol flickers into view into the centre of the room, the same as the one that had been above the door. It's still illegible. "-all will be revealed as you recuperate. These exercises are designed to build team synergy and demonstrate personal skills. Completing them will yield equipment that will be useful for the great task ahead…"

Around the symbol, holos of weapons and other equipment appear and flashily spin. Guns, launchers, whipswords, funnel crowns, shields, defensive aura emitters and more besides. The synthetic speech stutters and begins to replay from the start.

"What the fuck?" say both of Luyu.

Another pressure door stands ajar at the far end. Mirareki sneaks forward through the gauntlet of broken logic, and peers through the gap, checking both directions, then gives the thumbs up. You move forward to look out. <<Looks like a ship transit station,>> she says. You trace her path across the room with Luyu while Aletta and Reizay start prodding one of the puzzles. Through the far door you see a platform, with an electromagnetic monorail leading to an acceleration gate at one end and a blank wall on the other. The wall on the entry side is covered with climbing vines, and the other has a curved screen view that shows a high mountain vista over a beautiful alien forest glowing bioluminescence. The image shivers and shakes every so often, fading out and coming back, or mixing up with other images, a view up towards snowy mountains, or long, russet colored plains. An articulated magnetic levitation train stands in the station, doors open. Augmented reality controls hang around it, showing various possible destinations. "Looks like this section is an annex within a much larger ship."

Overhead, the lights flicker again, and the deck shudders. "Whole ship could be getting unstable." Luyu mutters. "We need pressure gear. And weapons."

"I wonder if we should find the control space." Aletta says. "We should learn the ship's status and there would likely be an equipment tree there too."

"We should just wait for the rescue team to find us." Reizay says. "Or maybe go find some of the crew. Find out what's happening." She shivers.

"Or just leave," says Mirareki.

What should you do?
[ ] leave and try to find the ship's command centre
[ ] leave and head to the crew section to try to find someone
[ ] leave and try to find the ship's primary fabricator archive
[ ] leave and try to find a shuttle bay
[ ] wait for someone to show up and deal with the situation
[ ] solve the puzzles anyway to see if you can get some gear
[ ] EXEC.AUTOSOLVE