Cosmic Explosions

 Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Zeraphina Althira. Zhodani Winston Diplomat from Querion
• NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion

by Jason

Where everything happens from hand-held flares to Cosmic explosions

Like, was it just last month that Belle and I were totally binging on teasing man boys, doing our hair, and waiting for our next shopping drop from the Space Station? OMG, it’s, like, totally true! For real! 

I feel like the last few weeks have totally changed me forever. It’s been such a trip hanging with the nerd boys and overall, like, fashion disasters in the fam. Now, I get that a flare is, like, something that burns giant spider webs, not just a style on our nearby Sword Worlds. Gs are such a drag. And the ruins left by the Ancients are, like, beyond cool! 

I’ve tried to be bold – like, fighting in the front when my jam is more like being an entertainer and influencer. No one’s held me back, it’s wild how everyone except Riley and Stasi are, like, total background players – never knew! 

I was chatting with Gnostic (a total brainiac) – and we’ve found something that, like, changes everything. There’s a huge power here that makes our system, like, the prime real estate for anyone looking to defend an Empire. That makes us, like super powerful – or dead. Whatever happens to us, we’re, like, making history, like, right now.

Like, one day people are gonna look back and, like, wanna know all about us, ya know? So, like, keeping this log is totally important. Ugh, this is not really my vibe, but I’ll try my best. 

Formaline

[At the Ancients' site, near the Zhodani encampment where the survivors of the Gnost Roma (including Anastasia Tepes and Finn) stayed for 20 years.]

I grab the log as we’re like, halfway through the tunnel to the control room, right?  Riley and me are totally leading the way. Spanner and Emerse are chilling behind us. 

We take an inventory of the firepower we have to get through whatever. So, 13 sticks of dynamite, 12 flares, 12 cocktails, and 12 grenades (with Anton). Pretty good compared with our last trip.

We make it to the first steam door, using flares as we go, like, totally burning the web. Gnostic does his handprint thing and the door opens, with steam in the ceiling above, and the room is, like, about the size of a lounge. There are webs everywhere, ugh! It’s cold and Anton doesn’t see any heat sources. He puts his helmet on anyway and we start clearing the webs. 

Gnostic's like, should we open the roof to check it out? Most are like, no way. So instead he opens the door to the passage ahead, and two spiders come running at us. Riley and me totally hammer one each. Anton shoots and finishes off the one closing on me. Riley wraps up his one too. Moving forward, we burn through our sixth flare, following the passageway and circling around to another door – like, the main chamber we expect. 

We’re all, like, ready! me, Anton, Sam, and Gnostic keep our helmets off for now. Gnostic opens the door but, like, the web is all in the way. Anton throws a Molotov, he’s like, the best thrower, right? It goes off, burning the web, and we can see in! There’s webs on the sides and 8 sets of eyes staring back. We put our helmets back on. Riley throws a grenade but totally misses. Anton throws and, like, lands it perfectly between four spiders, who take 8 points each.

 

Belle and Anastasia show up – Stasi swaps places with Gnostic, standing by Anton. Anton’s next grenade hits 4 spiders for 5 points! Stasi, me, and Riley all finish off a wounded one each, then Stasi takes down another one! Four spiders left now. I wound a fresh one for 5 points! One of them, like, totally jumps on my face for two rounds. It really hurt. 

Riley gets another and pushes it into the room, totally letting Stasi in. Like, one grabs Riley’s helmet and cracks it, and there's a fight until he shoots it and drops his gun. Riley and I toss off my spider, but ugh, I take more damage, -5 and it all goes dark. The spider lands like, super easily. Riley misses, but Stasi hits for 7 to finish it off.

So, like, next thing, Belle is totally tending to my face owies, like bringing me back to life, ya know? I’m feeling super hyped but also, like, totally barfing everywhere. I’m still kinda out of it. What’s the plan, tho? The last member of our gang that had this happen to her was, like, only around for 30 mins before totally flipping? 

Now, nothing else is moving in the webs, duh. There’s this steamy door on the far side and one in the ceiling, like OMG. They’re debating whether to take me back while Emerse is focusing on the mechanical challenge at hand in the time we have left. 

Gnostic is, like, opening up the ceiling hole – a cylinder block of snow totally falls down over the machine and it’s, like, stuck and frozen. 

Meanwhile, I’m suddenly super into Anton. I caress his neck and go in for a love bite - he’s screaming - and Riley, like, totally smashes my head with the butt of his gun (breaks my neck they say later, so rad). But Belle the medical Doc is, like, on it and keeps me stable, but no mouth-to-mouth, yikes! 

They rush me outside, Gnostic is getting the site defences under control. We meet back up with Finn and ask where we can find medical facilities – he hasn’t seen anything, like, whatever. The ship [Faerie Queene] is, like, orbiting, like, an hour away (too long) but Stasi is, like, "There’s an infirmary back at the old [ Zhodani survivors'] base (where Stasi spent 20 years)."

 

We take off in the air raft, Riley flying but only Gnostic can navigate or we’d be soooo lost. 

Penny's vomit

We get to the base. Stasi is guiding Belle and, like, turns on the power at the infirmary. They stabilize and, like, attach hoses to my stomach and pump it. They suck out, like, seven little spiderlings and are like, totally sure the stomach is empty. They do an enema for good measure, like, what the heck? Belle says it’ll take, like, six hours for neck surgery. 

Meanwhile, Emerse is, like, plotting to melt that snow back in the machine room with copper wire heated by the battery from the Zhodani generator but it’s, like, gonna take ages and they totally don’t have 24 hours. Seriously.

The rest of the squad gets back to the Ancients’ machine room through the tunnel. Totally prepped for a spider ambush, but like, nothing happens. So they chill in the room (snow). They close the roof and start digging with shovels. Gnostic's like, 'Let’s warm this place up' – cranks it to 35, then like 50 using his Crown of Ancients' with vac suits on. The snow melts super fast – it's, like, gonna half fill the room with water unless we open the sump door – so they do, and the water just flows out.

 

Gnostic raises the machine. Checks out the solar display. So, a Montrose scout ship is now in orbit around this moon (Formaline) along with the three Sword-Worlder destroyers. 

They tidy up the room and turn the defences back on. Head back to the infirmary. Gnostic needs to get Riley back on track with the air raft after he starts off in the wrong direction again. 

By this time, I’m all patched up, no paraplegia vibes, but I’m, like, restrained just in case. We gotta convince the Zhodani ambassador to get the Sword-Worlders to tell the Montrose ship to not land – she does it. It’s a bumpy ride back to the Faerie Queene, but we make it.

In Space

So, like, we’re totally planning to jet to a chill spot to peep this conjunction event or whatever. We decide to keep 50,000 km away from the Event spot after Emerse checks with his Tamaguchi. We’re also avoiding any beams from the Ancients’ sites that we’ve left running. Time to activate the sensors, ya know? 

A tentacle appears through the tear.

Now I’m feeling way better – but fish burps, lol. I’m rocking a neck brace for a week. Riley keeps trying to make me hurl some more, sooo annoying. 

EVENT! We see a glowing hole on the ship's sensors – like, a tear in space or something, 20km long, 5km wide. A massive segmented cylindrical shape emerges from the tear. It’s so organic, like an octopus arm or a gigantic slowly whooshing tail. 

Spiked balls emerge at high speed

It shoots these mechanical objects through a huge hole in the tip of the tentacle towards Formaline (half a million km away). They are like spheres with spikes, similar in size to the holes on that freighter. A stream of them.

 

We switch to combat mode and throw on vac suits. Riley’s helmet is cracked and, like, not safe, yikes! 

Then the tentacle thing, like, launches a spikey orb at us. Anton straps in, ready to fire, and we change direction but it’s totally following us! Riley tries to shake it off, but it’s gaining, like, so fast. We slow to one G, and Anton can finally fire [the ship's quad canon]. He shoots when it’s 20 km away. Total hit! The spikes get blasted off and now it’s just a ball, getting closer – like 1 km away, and Anton fires again. Bits are falling off now. 

Gnostic tunes into the device, and it’s like, ‘Surrender, and we won’t hurt you.’ He goes full blank on them and tells us what went down.

So like, the ball is totes up close now. Anton’s, like, shooting again. It’s only 500m away – boom! Sparkly vibes everywhere. We check the scanner. The ones going for the destroyers are totally out, but the unarmed Montrose scout ship gets hit by the spheres. "Mayday mayday, we’re boarded!" Then it totally cuts off. 

Gnostic [using his Crown] tries to chat with the Ancients’ telescopes, but fails (ugh). Tries to project his mind toward the octopus tail thing but, like, it hurts so much he loses four psyche and, like, falls down screaming. 

Formaline

We think we’ve got enough fuel to land on Formaline and see if we can use the machine to shoot at the alien ship. Then we’ll need to bounce back to the gas giant to refuel. We’re like, the spiders opened the space/time continuum but we can totally stop them! 

The destroyers are busy fighting off more stuff while we zoom by towards the moon’s surface. Riley nails the landing, and Gnostic’s feeling better by this point. [Lands the Faerie Queene at the same clearing where the air-raft did last time]

No changes since last time at the site and we head to the machine room. We activate the hologram and see the year and the wiggly alien arm – it looks like a tentacle with the hole still issuing the spikey balls. 

Gnostic’s all like, should I target it? There’s a green handprint and target reticle that appears on the hologram. Gnostic touches it. Then, like, the tentacle mother ship and the warp tear just totally disappear – poof! 

Gnostic target's a ball
using his Crown of the Ancients

He finds that if he moves the viewer to the spikey balls, the handprint-target again appears. So he targets them; they don't vanish like the arm and tear, they just explode. 

He also targets the messed-up Montrose ship (hit by a spike ball earlier); it explodes too.

Like, there's totally drama about what to blow up next, ya know? So, he zooms the viewport to Winston and there's this whole Montrose space station deal with, like, ten scout ships chillin'. Belle is like, 'No way, don't blow it up!' 

There are, like, a total of four space stations around Winston, for real. 

Gnostic, with his crown, is the only one who can, like, activate the targeting thing. He finds this super big rock, like, 10km wide way out in space and manages to blow it up. Major power vibes! But he can't bring up an adjacent solar systems on the display; it’s like, only targeting stuff in one system, ugh. We can scan the planets in the system but not the tunnels, like, totally lame.

 

Gnostic is all about staying with the machine, in case the rift shows up again (the effect has a +/- day halo, so cray). Everyone else heads to Faerie Queene. They decide to, like, chill for a day. Destroyers keep orbiting, and one totally heads toward the Montrose wreckage and just obliterates it. So, like, 24 hours go by and the rift is still, like, closed and totally fine.

So like, Gnostic totally shuts down the whole place and re-ups the defences, then we bounce off to the gas giant Lophomyrtus to refuel. We shoot a message to Contessa for orders, and she’s like, wouldn’t it be fab if the Montrose space station was no longer there? 

Riley skims Lophomyrtus upper clouds to refuel, getting super close. 

We return to Formaline again, but Riley lands totally bad, wrecking a [SABRE] engine, so we can’t leave. Sang the engineer says she can fix it but it’ll take like, eight days using stuff from the old Zhodani survivors' base. Better than 19 years we figure.

Back in the Ancients’ complex, Gnostic fires up the machine again but feels super guilty about blowing up the Montrose's space station – ends up blowing up another asteroid instead. Realizes Contessa didn’t give a straight order, and doing it cold-blooded would mess him up mentally.

 

Contessa: "Wouldn't it be nice..."

We scan the planet and, like, see no more spiders at all. We watch the Montrose ship debris fall out of orbit and crash onto Formaline – like, nothing left. 

During the eight days we all chill and get our psyche back (Spanner and Gnostic are still one psyche down, though). Once our ship's engine is fixed, we lock up Formaline and head to Dollar. 

Contessa pings us asking where we’ve been and why we've been MIA (there are no comms from the surface of Formaline). She’s all about the Montrose station still being in orbit. Belle emails asking about more specific orders, but she just repeats what she said before. 

Dollar

Takes like, five days to reach Dollar, during which time we finish up the final psyche fixes. The party votes on whether to blow the space station, and it’s 6-2 for no. Stasi and Riley vote yes.

So like, we totally think closing down the Ancients’ three stations is super best, to keep them safe from others’ use. But some of us are all confused after Contessa's totally vague order. 

The Zhodani fleet [one light cruiser, two destroyers and five frigates from the Querion system] finally rolls up at Formaline's orbit, and Ambassador Zeraphina talks with them on a private channel. 

Afterwards she visits Gnostic and is all, like, ‘Hey Prof, wanna join us for a job?’ She’s, like, ‘I can hook you up with major cash and, like, all the ladies you want.’ 

She says, ‘It’s time for the Sword-Worlders to, like, move on, and it’d be better if this system was, like, totally Zhodani.’ 

Gnostic looks as white as a ghost – but is, like, gonna think about it, for sure.

FOUR HOURS

  Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• MARMALADING: Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Zeraphina Althira. Zhodani Diplomat from Querion
• NPC: Finn. Cyborg from Querion

by Jeff

Riley hadn't finished his two bottles

The morning dawned clear and sunny, and apart from Riley's headache from last night's drinking, everyone was in good shape. The ground crew had loaded up the truck with everything we would need (turns out that they hadn't loaded 'everything' we would need, but more about that later) for the trip out to the canyons and the newly discovered Ancient site, so we jumped in and headed out. Anton was very excited that they had even equipped the truck with a mounted machine gun and he spent most of the trip standing behind the gun caressing the barrel and aiming at every passing rock and piece of scrub. "Blam, blam" he shouted as he took aim.

Arriving without incident at the cave that led to the Ancient access tunnel, we encountered the new set of guards that Contessa Ende had sent out here to keep those Montrose bastards away from the site. Riley thought the squad of eight were a bit lax and immediately sent two of them up to the lookout ledge at the top of the cliffs "to keep an eye open for anything suspicious". 

Offloading the large chest that contained the "Volatile Canker" (we hoped) and our new stock of weapons, we began our trip down the tunnel. Gnostic donned the Crown of the Ancients and led us up to just in front of the ring of blood where one of the previous soldiers had exploded. 

"It's red" explained Gnostic, "Active and deadly. So don't go crossing the line just yet"

Only Gnostic, and only while wearing the Crown, was able to see and use the Ancients technology that guarded and protected the Ancients site. Gnostic tried to summon the servitor that had previously assisted us at the site, but that was unsuccessful. 

"Just open the way" suggested Penny.

Gnostic issued a mental command through the Crown to open the way.

"It's green" he declared, "Let's go"

Only Gnostic could see the colours

We passed the defence ring and proceeded down the tunnel to the Artifact room (where we had found the four Ancient artifacts, including the Crown) and then on towards the main Control room. 

Gnostic placed his hand onto the palm plate and opened up the steam door into the Control room. It appeared just as we had left it a few weeks ago. Gnostic then opened up the Servitor room, and he reported that the Servitor was there and had emerged into the Control room with us. A brief discussion between Gnostic and Servitor revealed that we needed to place the required power source item into the 'receptacle' in the Power room.

"We knew that already" grunted Riley, "Let's go look"

Gnostic opened the steam door leading down into the Power room, and we cautiously advanced. The Power room was quite different from the active Power room back on Dollar, this one had no steam drifting around, no water dripping into the tank below the floor grates, and no noise. The main control unit was situated in the middle of the room, and we knew that the power source creature would be located right behind it.

"OK" stated Riley, "You take the margrave thing and that body around to the receptacle"

He was looking at Anton, who shook his head. "No freaking way am I going back there"

A discussion ensued. 

Penny volunteered, and she took the margrave and disappeared around behind the control unit.

The horrible visage of the creature gave Penny a start [Jason used two luck points to ensure that Penny made her Psyche roll and didn't run screaming from the room in shock] but she quickly recovered and looked at the slumped form and noticed two gashes in its side. One shaped just like the margrave in her hand, and another quite a lot longer, but looking nothing like the grey creature that was in the crate.

"There's a gash in the creature's body that matches the margrave" Penny called, "I'm sticking it in"

The margrave slid easily into the gash, and the creature gave a jerk. 

The gash rapidly sealed itself over the margrave until the area looked exactly like the rest of the body.

"Bring the chest around" Penny called.

Another discussion ensured.

"Not me" stated Riley forcibly.

"I've been shocked by that thing before" noted Spanner, "I'd most likely run again"

In the end, Gnostic assisted Penny to drag the crate around behind the control unit, opened it up, and together they peered back and forth between the body and the remaining gash in the chest of the power creature.

"This isn't going to work" declared Gnostic, "It must be something inside the body we need"

"Try the hand" called Emerse from the other side of the room.

Gnostic lifted the arm of the body and poked the hand into the gash. Nothing happened.

"Belle" called Gnostic, "Bring your scalpel and give us a hand here"

Taking a deep bracing breath, Belle grabbed her medical kit and rounded the control unit.

[Steve had to spend four luck to make Belle's Psyche roll, and Belle didn't run screaming]

 Belle whipped out her scalpel, made a large incision right across the belly, and drew its odd grey skin apart. Immediately inside the belly was a long thin organ that obviously matched the gash in the power creature.

"That stinks" complained Penny.

"That's got to be it" decided Gnostic, and they lifted the strange organ up and slid it into the gash.

"Sllluuurp" went the wound, and it sealed up over the generative apthera.

Stepping back, Penny, Gnostic, and Belle watched as the horrific creature's head slowly lifted and its eyes opened.
They quickly retreated back abound the control unit and joined the rest of the party, and everyone hurried out of the room and returned to the main Control room.

"Who has woken me?" echoed inside Gnostic's brain.
"You have been woken to perform your task" replied Gnostic mentally.

A vision of a large room full of rubies appeared in Gnostic's mind.

"Can't eat those" Gnostic muttered as he scanned the control panel, noting that the engine room was now green.

"Let's get the hatch open and the detector raised" Gnostic decided.

"What about all the water up in the bowl?" asked Spanner.
"What about all the water up in the bowl" relayed Gnostic to the servitor.
"There is no water above the hatch" replied the servitor to Gnostic.
"There is no water above the hatch" relayed Gnostic.

"Bullshit there isn't" yelled Spanner, "We went kayaking on it not so long ago" 

"No" responded Emerse, "There is a shaft straight up to space. We saw the stars in daytime up there"

"There might be a shaft to space, but we were floating on the water when we saw that!" 

"There is water above the hatch" relayed Gnostic to the servitor.

"Inconceivable" responded the servitor.

"He says that's inconceivable" relayed Gnostic.

"I do not think it means what he thinks it means" quipped Spanner.

"Better just test it slowly" instructed Anton, and he immediately ran out of the room and away up the tunnel.

Everyone else backed off to the door to the tunnel, and Gnostic opened the roof hatch.

Immediately, a powerful jet of high-pressure water thundered around the hatch opening.

"CLOSE IT" yelled everyone simultaneously, which Gnostic did.

The water flow stopped, and the water that had squirted into the room slowly ran out through the last exit door from the control room, which led off to something called the Room of Shame.

"We need a drain" declared Emerse, "What's in that Room of Shame?"

We took a look into the passage that led to the Room of Shame, but Gnostic stopped us and pointed out the glyphs carved into the walls of the passage.

"Danger, do not enter. Room of Shame. Do not enter" Gnostic translated.

"Right then" declared Penny, "Let's not enter. Let's just assume that it will act as a drain"

"(2/3)πr³" muttered Emerse, "Bernoulli ... flow rate ... hatch about 4m2 ... height 300m"

"Four hours" yelled Emerse, "The bowl will drain in four hours"

"Right" declared Gnostic, "Lets head up to the defence ring, open the hatch, walk out to the lake, and watch it drain"

Closing the steam door between the Control room and the access tunnel, we all trooped back up the tunnel to the defence ring location. Emerse figured that if the steam door failed and the water flooded back up the tunnel, we would feel the draft and have time to exit the cave system to the canyon before any water arrived.

Standing at the defence ring (which was still green) Gnostic issued a mental command through the Crown to open the hatch. Then we all headed out of the tunnels and made our way to the lake to watch it drain.

Anton was already there, and while he reported that some bubbles had popped up some time ago, there had been no draining taking place. There was no vortex swirling in the centre of the lake, and the water level had not dropped at all.

"Bugger" muttered Gnostic.

We all (except for Anton who wouldn't go back into the caves) headed back to the tunnel and proceeded to the defence ring. Gnostic mentally commanded the Control room door open, and we rapidly backed up the tunnel towards the entrance. No draft blew against us from below. No water roared up the tunnel. Nothing.

Gnostic looked at Penny and raised an eyebrow. Penny shrugged her shoulders.

Everyone turned back and went down the access tunnel to the control room door, which was closed and not open.

"Ah" declared Gnostic, "We were too far from the doors to be able to activate them mentally"

The lake hadn't drained because the hatch hadn't opened.

"I'll need to be much closer to the hatch" decided Gnostic, "In the Control room I suspect"
"Wear the vac suit" suggested Emerse.
"We didn't bring them" noted Spanner.

"Bugger" grumbled Gnostic.

We concluded that Gnostic would need to be in the Control room, or perhaps in the Servitor room, which was immediately adjacent to the control panel, to be able to open the hatch. We also concluded that at least one other person would need to be there to assist Gnostic in case of problems (like a flood of high-pressure water), and that the vac suits would definitely be required, in case of submersion and drowning!

We retreated out of the cave, into the truck, and back to Bitter End to collect two vac suits.

A day later we were back. Anton had recovered from his temporary lack of courage and volunteered to assist Gnostic down in the control room while the rest of the party observed from the lakeside.

Anton and Gnostic sealed themselves into the Servitor room, donned their vac suits, and Gnostic issued the mental instruction to open the hatch. A load rumble immediately began beyond the closed door and the thunder of high-pressure water roaring through a relatively small aperture began.

Wiping his nervous sweat from his brow, Anton asked Gnostic how long it would be.

The lake was draining down

"Four hours" Gnostic replied, "Assuming Emerse got his calculations correct"
"Gulp" 

Up above at the lake, the rest of the party watched as a burp of bubbles trickled up the surface of the lake and a swirling vortex formed in the centre of the bowl. The lake was dropping.

"Maybe a little more than four hours" clarified Emerse as he eyed the vortex.

After four hours the thundering vibrations hadn't subsided, but shortly thereafter they did. Gnostic opened the door from the Servitor room to the Control room. Water flooded into the room, sweeping Anton and Gnostic off their feet and swirling them towards the Control room door. Anton managed to anchor himself to something solid and grabbed Gnostic by the arm as he was swept past him towards the door.

After a few minutes the water flow stabilized, and the level slowly dropped from the ceiling down to the floor level.

"So" muttered Anton, "More than four hours" 

After another fifteen minutes, the floor was clear of water and Anton released Gnostic.
They made their way into the Control room and watched the water drain away down the tunnel to the Room of Shame. Looking up through the hatch they saw the twinkling of millions of stars.

Projecting his command mentally through the Crown, Gnostic issued the final instruction to the servitor.

"Raise the detector" he instructed.

The detector platform smoothly lifted from the floor and into the hatch above, dripping water. As soon as it socketed itself into the hatch, the 3D holographic projection of the local solar system appeared within the Control room. Gnostic mentally zoomed the projection into the zone near the wreck of the Zhodani freighter around Formaline. He made out three additional ships in orbit immediately adjacent. The detectors instrumentation had tagged them as Sword World Destroyer Class ships.

"Getting busy there" mused Gnostic, "And look, there is the Montrose scout ship"

He pointed at a glowing spec in orbit around Winston. 

"This is such a strategically significant site!" he decided.

Making sure the detector stayed deployed, Gnostic and Anton closed the steam doors, returned up the tunnels to the others, activated the defence ring to red, and led everyone back to the truck.

"Keep a sharp watch" Riley instructed the guards, "It's even more important than ever now!"

Everyone loaded into the truck, and we raced back to Bitter End.

"We wasted twenty hours fetching those vac suits" noted Emerse.

"Only two and a half days left to the conjunction" he added.

"Plenty of time" declared Riley, putting his down on the accelerator.

We reported to Contessa on the trip back to the compound and asked the ground crew to get the Faerie Queene ready for an immediate departure. 

Stopping briefly to load up some extra cases of whiskey, Riley soon had everyone strapped in for the launch up to orbit, and then straight through to Formaline.

The trip there was uneventful, although there were musings.

"Are we sure activating this conjunction is a good idea"
"Absolutely, just think what three of those detector things could see when combined"
"What happened last time? Wasn't it nineteen and a half years ago?"
"Yeah, my freighter was hit by three explosions, and we ejected down onto Formaline"

"And old Winston Peters died in that skyhook accident about then too"

"Was there a time before that?"

"Ah, yup, some three hundred and fifty-two years ago"

"What happened then?"

"Nothing much"

"The terraforming of Winston started about then!"

"Hmmmm"

Three Sword World Destroyers moved to intercept

As we entered the Formaline zone, we were hailed by the Sword World Destroyers.

We had spotted them from the further out, and they had obviously just destroyed both the freighter and the Zhodani scout ship. Taking no chances! 

Fiery debris still burnt behind them as they moved in our direction.

"WARNING. YOU ARE ENTERING ZHODANI RESTRICED SPACE. TURN BACK NOW"

"We're just passing through" responded Riley.

"WARNING. YOU ARE ENTERING ZHODANI RESTRICED SPACE. TURN BACK NOW"

"This is Zhodani Ambassador Zeraphina Althira. Put on your captain"

"WARNING. YOU ARE .... Oh, Ambassador. What can we help you with?"

"Certainly, you are cleared to land on the surface, near your survivor's camp"

Riley pulled the Faerie Queene into a low orbit above the Ancient site on the surface. Well, not directly above obviously, but some kilometres off the side of the overhead beam line. Then most of the crew suited up and boarded the air-raft. Belle and Emerse stayed up on the ship to watch over Hoff and Itzy, and to give us some cover from above if necessary. Emerse figured that since the guns were no problem, how hard could it be to manoeuvre the Faerie Queene? 

"Don't you bloody touch my controls" yelled Riley from the air-raft pilot's seat.

Riley took the air-raft for a few spiral loops around the Ancient site on the way down to the moon's surface. It was just like the others, a huge hemispherical bowl cut down below the surface of the moon. No water, although the base glistened white with the snow that covered most of the landscape. Low scrub covered the surrounding plains and Stasi pointed out the location of their old camp site. Everything was covered with patchy white snow, but Riley spotted a small clearing relatively close to where the tunnel entrance to the Ancient site began.

"What about using the exhaust wash to burn back all the scrub around the clearing?" suggested Spanner.

"Good idea" responded Riley, "I can give it a crack"

[Riley's piloting skill for Air-raft is not that good, although Richard has been building it up since we obtained this one from the Zhodani survivors. At the last minute (after failing his Air-raft skill roll) Riley realised that the 360-degree jet wash burn idea would require two successful skill rolls. Fortunately making his Luck roll, Riley managed to thump down somewhat near the centre of the clearing, but without burning back much of the snow-covered scrub]

"CRUNCH"

Below Formaline

It was the vibration that alerted them to the activity. They had shut down most of their external sensor input due to the low temperatures, but feeling the vibrations from the surface they extended their sensor grid and activated those in the vicinity.

It was a Floater! The two-legs had returned! Perhaps it was breeding time again, despite the cold.

A few two-legs emerged from the floater and staggered through the surface covering towards the hive. They wondered again how the two-legs managed to move, always falling as they travelled forward. Perhaps after the breeding they could study another two-legs and see how they worked.

Viewing the two-legs from multiple units in the scrub around their path, they watched as the two-legs entered the hive-mouth. Atrocity! The two-legs were burning out the sensor grid inside the hive-mouth! A brief doubt flooded their consciousness. But, they thought, at least the vaporiser will kill one of them. They sent three units from the surrounding scrub to follow the two-legs into the hive. 

Aberration! The two-legs stumbled right past the vaporiser, and it didn't activate! With a brief thought, they sent one of the units charging ahead down the hive-mouth towards the two-legs. It was time to end this.

Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. At least the other units would be safe for two rotations they knew and sent another unit to attack.

Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. This was unknown. Why had the vaporiser activated in such quick succession. Aberration. Send the final they instructed, and the last unit raced down the hive-mouth.

Aberration! The vaporiser has activated and unit's input ceased. Their input from the hive-mouth faded with the destruction of the last unit, and the two-legs disappeared from their senses. Imperative, they thought, activate more units, we must breed the two-legs!

...

FIFTEEN DAYS!

 Present:

• Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
• Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
• "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
• MARMALADING: Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
• MARMALADING: Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
• Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
• Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
• Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
• Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
• NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
• NPC: Zeraphina Althira. Zhodani Diplomat from Querion
• NPC: Finn. Cyborg from Querion

by Jeff

As we were shuffling onto the air-raft in preparation to depart Dollar, everyone heard a despairing scream echo in their minds. Full of loneliness and suffering, it slowly faded, leaving a feeling of endless despair. Spanner was particularly affected and slumped to the floor of the air-raft sobbing. [Failed her Psyche roll!]

"Was that the power-source creature?" wondered Belle, "Poor thing"

Riley strapped himself into the pilot's chair and launched the air-raft.

"Hold on" he gleefully instructed, throwing the raft into a series of swerves on its climb to the Faerie Queene.

"BURP" Riley belched as he settled into the Faerie Queene's pilot's chair, and a strong smell of fish spread throughout the bridge.

"Gross" complained Emerse, "What have you been eating?"

Riley's belch was followed by similar fetid explosions from Itzy, and Stasi.

"Oh oh" noted Spanner, "Could this be a sign of spider infestation?"

"Straight to the sick bay" commanded Belle. (The girls' state room)

Saltwater emetics were administered to Riley, to little effect. 

[Riley has a high Constitution and easily made his CON roll ] 

But pushing his fingers down his own throat on top of the emetic successfully triggered his gag reflex and he emptied the contents of his stomach into the sample tub. 

Spitting out the last of the acidic bile, Riley peered into the tub.

"Eeew" he gasped, noting a series of wriggling spider shaped things thrashing around.

Riley grabbed the emetic bottle and repeatedly swilled down dose after dose, throwing up repeatedly until he was reduced to a series of dry retches.

"Nine" he exclaimed, counting the squirming creatures in the tub.

The spiderlings were stored.

"EVERYONE" commanded Belle, "In here now!"

We all submitted to the emetic treatments, Emerse reluctantly and only after Riley threatened to burn all his hairbrushes and stomp on his Tamagotchi, until Belle was finally satisfied. 

Itzy and Stasi had been infected too, but the rest were clear.

"See" complained Emerse, "I was fine. I didn't need to swallow that foul slime". 

"Shut up" instructed Belle, pouring the collection of wriggling spiderlings into the sample demijohn.  

Messages from Contessa Ende had arrived; apparently the Zhodani had sent one of their scout-ships out to Formaline to further investigate the lost freighter, the Gnost Roma.

Penny looked across to Riley, "I hope they are prepared" she worriedly noted.

We messaged back that the spider creatures were particularly "infectious", and that Contessa should prepare medical research equipment for us when we arrived back in-system. And weapons, fragmentation and incendiary grenades, and flame-throwers!

Zeraphina reported that she had heard from "her people", that they had requested military support from the Querion home base. A Zhodani RDF force was expected to arrive at Formaline in a three weeks.

"Looks like they will need to form a line there" quipped Stasi.

Once Riley had received some Healing from Belle, [1 point on the D4 roll] he headed back to the bridge and took the pilot seat.  "Where to?" he asked.

The resulting discussion included the destinations of Winston, Formaline, the Winston Space Station, and refuelling at Lophomyrtus, the gas giant around which Formaline orbited. Riley had gotten the Faerie Queene moving towards the gas giant, when Emerse's computer let out a loud beep and ejected a few sheets of output. Emerse rushed over and scanned through the information.

"Fifteen days" he excitedly announced, "I was right!"

Turns out that Emerse's supposition that the overhead beam line from each of the three Ancient sites, would intersect at a single location somewhere near the gas giant Lophomyrtus in fifteen days' time. And then not for another fifty-five years! And it also intersected nineteen and a half years ago.

"Will something happen there?" wondered Gnostic.
"Did you leave the Dollar machine turned on?" asked Belle.

"The Winston site will need to be activated" decided Emerse.

Riley flipped the Faerie Queene and headed back to the Dollar site while Belle performed a series of Psychoanalysis sessions for Spanner and Riley, who had both seen the strange energy creature on Dollar and been negatively affected. [One of Belle's skills is the ability to conduct Psychoanalysis and raise the patients Psyche score. Scary things potentially cause a drop in Psyche, and if this drops to zero the character becomes unplayable. Belle was successful with Spanner, and her Psyche score was raised from 5 to 6. Unfortunately, Belle fumbled (rolled a 20) with Riley and his Psyche actually dropped by 1]

"Sorry" apologized Belle.

Emerse and Spanner calculated travel times between Dollar, Lophomyrtus, Formaline, Winston, and back to the gas giant nexus location. 

"We can do it" exclaimed Spanner.

"We can do it quicker" declared Riley, "If we hit 2G acceleration for the trips"

"But we'll get squished" complained Emerse.

"Take a cup of cement and harden up" replied Riley.

A further message from Contessa that contact with the Zhodani scout-ship had been lost and that The Sword World command were also sending a military scout-ship which was to arrive in about a week. 

All this information was factored in.

We had a plan!

Dollar

 

Gnostic and Riley took the air-raft down to the Ancient site and activated the machine.

Using the Crown of the Ancients, Gnostic opened the ceiling hatch and raised the platform up into it.

As the platform reached its extent of travel, a full holographic 3D image of the whole system appeared in the room around them. All planets glowed, with name tags adjacent, and even various spaceships with tags and vectors. Gnostic transcribed all the Ancient tags, and the data about the spaceships in system were relayed to Riley.

Leaving the machine active, Gnostic and Riley shipped back up to the Faerie Queene.

Riley executed a perfect refuelling

Gas Giant Lophomyrtus

Riley executed a perfect hydrogen fuel scoop during a slingshot manoeuvre around the planet.

Emerse of course whimpered quietly in the corner, brushed his hair franticly, and waited for the ship to melt.

"We're not melting" stated Riley.

We had taken this leg of the journey at 1G (a 5-day journey) to give everyone who had been injured by the spider's an opportunity to rest and heal, with Belle also using her Healing and Psycho-analyze skills on the worse affected.

Formaline

Travelling this leg at 2G, Riley brought the Faerie Queene in towards the Zhodani wreck, the Gnost Roma, after only thirteen hours travel. As reported by Contessa, there was a Zhodani scout ship parked up next to the Gnost Roma's closed cargo hatch, with a tether line running across to the open personal hatch that we had used to escape from the ship.

Emerse tried to raise the scout ship on the radio, but there was only static.

Here we were planning to head into the ship and retrieve the Volatile Canker, assumed to be the strange grey creature that we had previously encountered in the crew quarters corridor, before retreating.

"But we can't face spiders again" complained Emerse.

"You never faced them before" noted Riley.

"But, but, ...." stammered Emerse, "You can't face them again"

"Yeah, we could" stated Riley, "But it would be better if they were dead already"

"The Faerie Queene has a gun" noted Spanner.

Emerse let rip with the cannons

Emerse was the best gunner we had available, and he excitedly took Anton's gunner's station.

"The bridge first" Emerse decided and let rip with the cannons.

[Darryl's gunnery skill is only 4, with a penalty two-dice roll, but he rolled very successfully with at least two 1's]

The cannon fire ripped through the web seal that we had previously encountered across the original hole into the bridge, and we watched through the port as ship atmosphere vented out through the opening.

"Now" declared Emerse, "The main hold and crew quarters corridor", and let rip again.

The 30mm calibre cannon shells tore easily through the hull, and we again observed atmosphere venting out through the various penetrations. Emerse laughed gleefully, "I'm a gunner now" he declared.

Riley, Penny, Zeraphina, and Spanner suited up and climbed aboard the air-raft. 

Finn accompanied them, no need for him to wear a suit!

Riley took the air-raft across to the hatch, and zero-gee acrobatics got everyone into the small hold.

[A roll against each person's zero-gee skill was made, with most succeeding and helping the others through]

Everyone bounced through the small hold, through the airlock doors into the main corridor (all in vacuum now), down the corridor to the main hold door, down the ladder to the main hold, and into the crew corridor. A fifty-calibre cannon round had pierced directly through the centre of the door and the corridor was in vacuum. A couple of dead spiders floated gently around the corridor which they carefully brushed past.

Unfortunately, the next door was closed and sealed, with positive atmosphere beyond.

Noting its location to Emerse, they retreated back the way they just came and headed up to the bridge.

Popping up through the floor hatch into the bridge, Spanners radiation alarm squealed loudly.

Spider bodies drifted around the room, but there was no sign of any other creatures there. The original penetration into the bridge appeared to have been caused by a collision with something metallic. Twisted deformed pieces of strange metals littered the room. Grabbing a sample of the metal, Spanner quickly retreated back down to the corridor.

"Was there another door out of bridge?" asked Emerse over the comms.

"Maybe" replied Spanner, "But we ain't going there"

"We're coming out so you can shoot through that last crew corridor hatch" stated Riley.

Which surprisingly happened according to plan.
Emerse was ecstatic and proudly boasted of his new-found gunnery talent.

Re-entering the ship, Riley, Penny, Zeraphina, Spanner, and Finn, made their way back to the crew quarters corridor. A shiny new 30mm hole had been punched straight through the door, and the unexplored corridor beyond was now in a safe vacuum. Spanner opened the door.

The beams of torch light illuminated a grey creature lying on the corridor floor some meters ahead.

Riley let of a shot from his handgun, hitting the creature centre-mass.

Then he cautiously approached and reached out to grab the thing by its leg.

Hesitating in the act of grabbing, Riley turned and called back "Anyone got a rope?"

Penny tossed a rope forward and Riley lashed its legs, careful not to touch it too much

They dragged it along the corridor and into the main hold.

Spanner happened to be looking back at it as it bumped over the final door sill and rolled over.

Its horrid alien face was pointing straight at Spanner, and she leapt back in fright.

[Jeff made Spanners Psyche roll so there no negative effects, but it could have been problematical]

The team manoeuvred the grey corpse back up through the derelict ship, out the hatch, to the Faerie Queene.

It was stored in a crate in the main hold, and then Riley made his way back to the pilot's chair.

Winston

Riley instructed everyone to strap in and hold on, then fired up the engines. A 2G burn back to Winston.

Contessa ensured that we were cleared to land directly in the compound at Bitter End, and after a perfect touchdown just before sunset, Riley unstrapped and declared "I need a damn drink"

The local Ende ground crew assisted us to offload the crate, stow it in the truck (along with a bunch of weapons and equipment including twelve grenades, four stim packs, a dozen wood-alcohol Molotov Cocktails, twelve flares, thirteen sticks of dynamite, and crates of ammo), and initiated refuelling for the Faerie Queene.

Contessa was waiting for us and let us know that the Montrose bastards had been sniffing around at the canyons and even had their own scout-ship up in orbit around Winston.

Our plan was to head across to the canyons where the Ancient site was located in the morning...