Present:
- "Liz" Holmes. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- 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
- MARMALADING: Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- MARMALADING: Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
by Ian
Home Base
The party are gathered at the Ende home base in Bitter End, recovering from their field trip and planning for the next journey. We have a few days while the hydrogen plant and Emerse's walkie-talkies are completed.
Emerse awakens from his marmalade and notices his precious hair sticky and molded into spikes. He heads off to the washroom with his brush, comb and product to put things right. Grumbling about being made a fool of.
Riley gets permission and budget from Contessa for a reimaging and make over of the Montrose truck and gear. Contessa keenly agrees and the truck gets repainted, a new tarpaulin, replacement number plates.
The group also get Ye Faerie Queene repainted to suit. A beautiful black based green to suit such a classic as this ship is. The ship is old, simple, yet reliable. Exactly what the group need. Well, Anton wishes there was a little more room in the accommodation...
Anton asks for more grenades but there are none to be found. [Rolls 20 - fail - on luck to see if any available].
Anton also asks for a gun for the ship as there is an empty gun mount. Contessa agrees but confirms that there are none near but can be ordered in. It is agreed that the part would get sent to the space station in orbit and we can fit on our return. Every old classic deserves a mounted gun!
Liz managed to forge an ID for the Montrose clan (spending one luck for the success) from the ID taken from the slain Suzanne Prentis. Liz now has her name and photo on a valid ID that is linked to the Montrose Clan.
Emerse arranges for a satellite connection to the inter-webs. He now has connectivity to Galactipedia.
The party's navigators, try to work out the Ancients provided co-ordinates, using all the tools they have. Very little luck as nothing modern is even aware of the Ancients - other than relating to mystical stories, myth and legend. Finally the coordinates are entered into the Ye Faerie Queene's navigation computer and it seemed to understand the format and translated into modern navigation points. They were polar coordinates; one was on the system's gas giant Lophomyrtus's third major moon Formaline, and the other was to the distant planet Dollar (7.2AU). This matched the symbols on the control room that had the Ancients icon next to them.
Busy, busy loading up goods and supplies for the upcoming trip. Importantly was the allocation to all of vacc-suits.
Treasure divvy time-out
We took some time to offer the recent treasure items in the four Ancients items.
- Richard bagsed the "Ring of Reflect"; 5 laser damage armour.
- The "Crown of the Ancients" was a dice roll between Shane and Darryl (Liz and Emerse) and Shane won.
*We noted some risk around having the crown that does the translation of Ancients into ours, with Liz, our (as yet undiscovered) pathological liar. Looking forward to how that goes!*
The "Staff of Enema" and the "Jolly Jumper" are still up for grabs and waiting on the marmaladers to return.
Departure Day
 |
| Zeraphina |
"Zeraphina will be joining you, please ensure one of the state rooms is made available for our esteemed guest" Contessa decrees.
The group groans as they know that there are only four state rooms as it is, and they are not big!
After the group formalities are completed, Contessa moves her favorite waking son, Itsy, to one side and quietly requests:
"Can you please make sure that when Zeraphina's blood supplies run low, ensure your men folk can feed her?! Make sure you are last, of course". (Zhodanis are vampires)
Itsy ponders.. Hmmm.. Anton is rather beefy and would be ideal with so much extra to share, but then the male marmaladers would also be ideal as they won't argue? We shall cross that bridge when we get to it...
The party then allocate the state rooms, in the following way:
- The Women: Belle, Liz, Spanner, Split
- The Ende brothers: Hoff, Itsy
- The remaining men: Anton, Emerse, Riley
- Zeraphina
Emerse's communicators are ready and are allocated. They are multi-channeled (public and private configurable) with a range of up to two kms.
With the hydrogen fuel tanks full and fully stocked-up, and the launch pending, Zeraphina arrives and shakes everyone's hands. Well, more like crushes everyone's hands. Those with low strengths whimper with the pain (Zhodanis are very strong).
Everyone straps in and the classic Ye Faerie Queene (YFQ) blasts off to orbit, and docks with the space station (in a geo-stationary orbit at the end of the space elevator). All goes well. YFG is topped up with more fuel as leaving planet takes a lot of fuel - about half of a full tank! Some of the party disembark for the thirty mins to an hour for a lunch and early drink, courtesy of the Ende's tab.
All return to the ship and the coordinates are set for the moon Formaline, the third moon from Lophomyrtus, the gas giant.
YFQ doesn't have grav plates, so to get gravity, the ship accelerates (with its fusion-powered ion engines) at 1G, toward the half-way point, for about 40 hours, then turns around and decelerates at 1G for the rest of the journey.
The 1G allows for normal movement and relative comfort for the crew. Liz and Riley spend hours discussing navigation and ship mastery with Liz not accidentally revealing her ineptness. Liz's bullshit was just good enough to avoid being sprung!
The YFG warnings ring before the 39 hour transition to remind the crew to shut down the ship, ready for zero G. Items are stored and the toilet seats locked shut (most important!). The crew strap in as the ship flips around ready to begin deacceleration.
(Fun Math. At the point of the end of the acceleration, the YFG was travelling at roughly 1400 kilometres per second !!!
Snap quiz: how many AUs is the entire trip? 1 AU = 150 million km)
As the gravity changes, everyone rolls a CON roll to avoid nausea. The party all pass [with only one luck needed for Belle]. However, poor Zeraphina did not fare so well. Unfathomable noises of retching and heaving come from her room. Investigating afterward showed the state room layered with blood and gore as Zeraphina released all her stomach contents.
"Which of you men are the servant? My room needs a clean!" No one responds... "Oh, I guess I'll clean it myself then. Grrrr".
Formaline - the Moon
Formaline is roughly 6000 km diameter. The gravity is 16% of G. Don't jump too hard! Would love to see the view of the gas giant from here.
The ship glides toward its orbital position. All smooth and easy. But before arriving, a red blip appears on the radar that draws Riley's attention. The blip is 500,000 km away in its own stable orbit around the moon. Radar picked it up because the long range detection alerted it to not being a natural rock shape, and something more manufactured.
Long range scanning did not detect much. In fact, the lack of detection of anything was a sign in itself. No light, no transponder, no electromagnetic waves or engine signatures. Nothing.
The crew decide to investigate. It helped when Zeraphina walked onto the bridge and demanded that we go over and investigate.
YFQ is altered course to close in on the object.
The Wreck
Closing to 10,000 km, the telescope could finally be used. In the dim sunlight, it could be seen to be a larger freighter that was sitting cold. There are two large asteroid holes punched through the upper hull.
 |
| The wreck |
The ship is 300m long with 50m x 20m of hull.
The crew hail the ship and send out comms for response. Nothing...
"Take us in Captain".
They decide to close and minutes later the YFQ is along side with a full view of the freighter.
Now that we are really close, the name of the ship can be read: "Gnost Roma". Querying Galactipedia determined that this was indeed a Zhodani freighter that went missing 20 years ago in this system, on its return trip from Entrope. It was reported as empty when it went missing. The crew of 20 were reported as lost on duty.
The members of the crew that were more computer and ship systems savvy knew that the far ship may be able to receive remote commands to control the freighter cargo door. Emerse had a go and managed to send the exact protocol needed! [Roll of 1 on a skill check] and the cargo door slowly lowered from the underside of the ship.
The YFQ maneuvered through the opening and magnificently docked in the hold. [Riley rolled a 1 on spacecraft]. It was decided to leave the hold door open and put up with the decompressed space, rather than block the exit.
Volunteers were called for to go investigate. There were not so many that could handle the vacc suit, so in the end only Anton, Spanner, Liz and Zeraphina suited up and made their way to the hold door to the main ship. They entered the air lock, and Spanner confirmed that the door controls had power and pressurization should be working and the inside of the ship was already safe??? After some hissing and blowing, a pressurized atmosphere that was suitable was available in the chamber, but they didn't want to take helmets off.
Emerse was to remain on the YFQ and try to access the ships main systems. He did not have much luck doing this. Emerse was essentially blocked out of everything other than the cargo door by design.
With the new communicators and suit lights on bright mode, suit cameras operational and feeding to the YFQ bridge, the party opened the freighter door and carefully inspected. They were in a short corridor and nothing obvious to report. Was pitch black without the suit lights. Spanner checked systems as they went and there was nominal power being fed to some of the control panels, such as doors and lights, but no power to the lights themselves.
They proceeded onward.
Instructions on where the bridge should be are given and the small group head toward a door up ahead, off this corridor, that should lead to two companion-ways, then a shaft, up to the freighter bridge. (The bridge area was where one of the breaches were)
 |
| Scuttle scuttle |
Liz lets lose with a mighty swing of her two-handed machete and dents the spider. It fights back. Anton and Spanner ineffectively beat on the spider with their fists. Zeraphina stands back with her arms across her face in defence.
Round after round of this rather pathetic fight ensues.
[Liz is ok with the sword but suffers -1 damage because she is one of the party weaklings - with a two-handed sword. You read that correct.
Did not help that Ian, who was rolling the Shane's D10 damage die, was rolling 1's and 2's all night. Even WITH -1 we could have finished much earlier!
Anton and Spanner are hopeless and not meant for direct combat. They both use their very low 'brawl' skill and, surprisingly, do indeed hit sometimes.
The all powerful spider was literally being killed at 1hp damage per round, with rounds where the spider won thrown in.]
Eventually, the final blows are given and the spider is mush on the floor. Zeraphina is looking nervously at the team in front of her.
They proceed and locate the door of interest. It opens away from the corridor and into the next room or corridor. Assumption is that you could depressurize the corridor and the vacuum would really lock that door shut, protecting those in the room from the corridor.
Spanner uses the manual door mechanism to allow a narrow view into the next room. Shining a light and looking revealed many spider eyes reflecting. The door is rapidly shut.
Spanner ponders and a quick plan is devised.
The door opener seemed to be working fine. Spanner attached a wire from her tool kit, to the door control lines. They extended this wire to the pressure chamber back at the entrance to the hold. The team sat in the chamber and wire-remotely opened the door. They quickly SHUT the chamber door and waited for a minute or two. They then closed the far door.
While visibility was not that great, after a minute or so, with just the right light angle and look through the inspection window, the crew could see spider legs scuttling around in the corridor.
The depressurization button was pressed and the air from the corridor was vented! Whoosh....
The corridor was left depressurized for a minute or two and Spanner used the ship's systems and pumped the corridor with air again. They crept out to find eight spiders all dead on the floor! The plan worked perfectly!
The remote group used the manual lever opener (that still worked) and saw the area that was previously full of the spiders, was now empty.
No comments:
Post a Comment