Present:
- "Liz" Holmes. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- MARMALADING: "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
- "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- 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
by Jeff
The sharp beams from the away team's suit lights cut through the darkness and illuminated the corridor ahead. Empty. Spanner's plan to lure the spider creatures out of the corridor and expose them to vacuum worked flawlessly. Apart from the glistening slimy material running along the corners of the corridor at floor and ceiling level, there was nothing there. Time to advance ...
"Little help please" stammered Liz, still suffering from the previous spider attack.
Spanner attempted some First Aid, but given her meagre skills, the inhospitable conditions, and operating in the Vac Suit, she didn't hold out much hope for any success. By some miracle [critical success roll of 1 against a skill level of 3, miracle indeed] Spanner was able to ease Liz's pain [1 hit point cured]
As the away crew of Anton, Liz, Spanner, and Zeraphina (the Zhodani tag-along) prepared to move forwards along the corridor, a quiet beeping sounded back down the corridor behind them, and an orange light began to flash. From the bridge of Ye Faerie Queene, via Emerse's fancy earpiece communicators, came some frantic shouting.
"Bzzz - The hold door is closing" yelled Gnostic, "We need to get out now"
"Bzzz - It's OK" called Emerse, "I'll just open it up again"
"Bzzz - It's NOT OK" screeched Emerse a second later, "Access to the controls are down"
 |
| There was no access to the door controls |
There was a hurried debate, and Riley rammed the throttle stick down and raced for the rapidly closing door. [Richard had arranged last week that Riley would do any required piloting/driving this week while he was away, since there is no one else capable of flying the ship. A successful penalty roll was made (roll two dice, take the worst result)]
Ye Faerie Queene raced neatly through the diminishing opening like an orange pip squeezed between finger and thumb.
"Yee-haw" called Riley as he deftly spun ye Faerie Queene through a 180 and brought her to a halt, facing back towards the cargo hold door.
"Bzzz - Looks like you're all on your own in there" noted Itzy through the comms.
"Bzzz - Head on for the bridge" called Emerse, "Should be kind of straight ahead, then up"
Using the internal corridor control panels, Spanner re-pressurised the corridor and Anton flipped up his helmet visor.
"Thank god" he panted, "It's bloody nice to be out of that. I can see much better now too"
Spanner took a few minutes to collect a sample of the glistening slime in the corners of the corridor, and then the team moved forward along the corridor to another sealed door.
"Vacuum" noted Spanner, "Better close that visor again"
Anton sealed his helmet and waved permission for Spanner to open up the door, via the manual control. The electronics were still down, flashing the familiar Error 503 message. Hauling down on the manual lever, Spanner cautiously cranked open the door, revealing a small room and a ladder rising "up" into a shaft.
"Bzzz - The bridge should be up above you" hissed Emerse's voice from the communicators.
Liz drew her handgun, stood at the bottom of the shaft, and looked "up"; Darkness.
She pushed off and propelled herself up the shaft. Anton moved in behind here and followed.
"Arrrgggghhhh" screamed Liz as she arrived at the bridge level, legs suddenly flailing wildly above Anton's head.
[Shane had to make a Psyche roll as Liz reached the top of the shaft and her lights illuminated the contents. The Psyche stat governs mental fortitude against horrors (think Cthulhu), so Liz must have seen something horrific. Unfortunately, Shane failed the roll and Liz flipped out, no longer able to communicate as she screamed and screamed and thrashed about, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her Psyche stat. also dropped by one, making it even more difficult to confront the horrific, until undergoing a successful counselling session with a Psycho-Analyser]
Anton grabbed Liz's leg and hurriedly dragged her back down to the room where the others waited.
"Bzzz - What's all that noise?" hissed Emerse over the communicators.
"Bzzz - Did you see anything on Liz's camera?" called Anton.
"Bzzz - Nope" replied Emerse, "Just darkness"
Liz slowly settled but was curled up into a foetal ball on the corridor floor, blubbering quietly.
Spanner was below the shaft, keeping on eye open for anything that might want to come down.
"I guess I'll take a look" Spanner decided, "Anton, prepare to recover me too"
"Arrrgggghhhh" screamed Spanner as she arrived at the bridge level, just like Liz.
Anton and Zeraphina manoeuvred the unresponsive Liz and Spanner back to the previous corridor, closed the interconnecting door, and re-pressurised the zone. Liz, and then Spanner, slowly recovered, but had no recollection of what had happened, and certainly no recollection of seeing anything up in the bridge.
Anton tried to get Liz to recall anything, but all that happened was that Liz had another panic attack.
[Made another Psyche roll, failed, flipped out, and dropped another Psyche point. She was now on only 4/20 points]
"Bzzz - The bridge is definitely out" declared Anton.
With Liz again on the floor thrashing about and blubbering, Anton and Spanner made their way back to the cargo hold, now repressurised, to see if there was any way out of the ship from there. Zeraphina stayed with Liz in the corridor to make sure she didn't get into any trouble.
"Bzzz -The hold's out too" reported Spanner, "The door hydraulics are out, no fluid pressure, and no pumps locally"
"Bzzz - We'll take a look at bridge from out here" noted Emerse from the Faerie Queene.
"Bzzz - Liz has come to and settled down now" noted Zeraphina.
While Spanner checked the cargo hold more thoroughly, Riley took the Faerie Queene up towards the bridge, aligning the bridge viewports of each ship to see if they could get a look inside.
"Is this a good idea?" questioned Split.
Closer inspection of the cargo ship's hull around the bridge location revealed that what was initially thought to be an asteroid type impact rupture, was in fact a perfectly circular and smooth penetration, about three metres in diameter, directly through the hull into the bridge, just above the viewport. But the viewport and the penetration were both sealed off on the inside by a glistening, slimy membrane that prevented any observations into the bridge.
"Bzzz - We'll go take a look at the other hole" decided Gnostic, "You guys should also head back down towards the rear of the ship and see if you can find the main storage hold and the crew quarters"
"Bzzz - We can surely get you out through that hole" he concluded.
Racing back along the side of the cargo ship, Riley positioned the Faerie Queene over the other area of damage. Another perfectly formed circular opening, but without the slimy seal.
"Bzzz - That's into the crew quarters" noted Emerse, studying his generic Zhodani freighter schematic.
"Bzzz - That's where we are heading then" declared Anton.
Collecting Liz and Zeraphina on the way, Anton and Spanner moved along the main corridor towards the rear of the ship, soon arriving at another closed bulkhead door.
"Vacuum" noted Spanner, "Visors down and check suit seals"
As soon as everyone was ready, Spanner used the manual door control to open up the bulkhead door. Air started whistling out around the door as soon as it cracked opened, the draft increasing as the door opened. Liz must have still been a little upset after her prior panic attacks as she stumbled in the draft and staggered forward through the door. Lightning quick, Zeraphina threw out an arm and grabbed Liz as she was sucked past Anton and Spanner, nearly tumbling off the short ledge on the other side of the door. The ledge overlooked the huge cargo storage hold at the rear of the ship, a "drop" of some thirty metres down to the floor.
[I guess terms like "up" and "drop" don't mean much in zero G, but she would have tumbled across the width of the hold and may have collided with the far wall]
 |
| "Huh?" responded Liz. |
"Hey Liz" questioned Anton, "How did you get those two puncture wounds on your neck?"
"Huh?" responded Liz.
Spanner turned to Zeraphina. "You didn't .... Nah ... surely not"
Pulling themselves down the rungs attached to the wall below the ledge, the away team made their way to the floor of the cargo hold. There were only three doors visible, the one they had just come through, the giant cargo hold doors (not functioning), and one right in front of them at the bottom of the ladder.
Spanner flicked her hands across the control panel and reported atmosphere on the far side. Then she activated the hold pressurisation command and waited for the ship to flood the cargo hold with breathable atmosphere. That took a good ten minutes but gave options around having their visors open or closed. Then the door was opened, manually, as all control functions apart from the atmosphere controls were not functioning. Damn the 503 error!
A passage, matching the one above, led off towards the front of the ship. Glistening slimy strands of the same web type substance as the corridor above clustered along the corners of the passage. The ship lights were off, so it was only the suit torches that illuminated the way ahead.
"I can hear better with the visor up" noted Anton, having opened up his helmet visor.
"Good idea" replied Liz, "Don't want to be surprised by anything"
[Turned out this wasn't actually a good idea at all, but read on ...]
Closing the door behind them, the team moved slowly forward along the passage. Liz, wielding her handgun and with her sword strapped to her back, took the lead. Anton followed, with Spanner and Zeraphina at the rear.
About five metres down the passage, Liz spotted one of the spider creatures, last encountered in the passages above, lurking in the web at the roof level. Bringing her handgun to bear, Liz took aim as the spider launched itself directly at her. Surprised by the spider's flying attack, Liz fumbled and dropped her handgun. The spider hit her straight in the face and immediately latched on.
Screaming hysterically, Liz stumbled backwards into the rest of the team. Anton pushed her off, but Zeraphina managed to grab the creature and with a mighty yank, pulled it off Liz's face. It didn't give up easily though, and as it came away, a large chuck of the skin from Liz's face came with it.
[Shane fumbled his handgun attack, rolling a 1 on the D20, then he also failed Liz's Psyche roll, so Liz flipped out. Since she had encountered these spider-like creatures before she didn't drop a Psyche point but was certainly out of action for a period. Andrew's attack roll on behalf on the NPC Zeraphina was successful, and she managed to rip the spider away, dealing 6 points of damage to it, but damaged Liz by 3 points in the process]\
"Bzzz - Liz, are you OK?" called Belle through the communicator.
"Bzzz- I'm fine" Liz eventually responded, "Just some scratches"
"Bzzz - Well, be careful then"
Spanner took a sample of the spider blood and tissue in another of the glass vials.
Anton and Liz closed up their visors, deciding that the increase in protection was worth the drop in perception. They moved forward, Anton now at the front and Liz at the rear.
 |
| A mummified and desiccated Zhodani body |
No body in that one, but Spanner heard a scuttling of small feet from somewhere up in the ceiling darkness and hurriedly slammed the door shut.
"Quick" she called, "Back up. Into the main hold"
"Now what?" asked Anton.
"We might be able to burn through that webby barrier" suggested Spanner.
"With what?" asked Anton.
A quick search through the cargo hold didn't reveal much. Some old sacks and remnants of stored wheat, probably the last cargo run before the ship ran afoul of ... whatever.
"Wheat husk will burn" noted Anton.
"And we could salvage the gunpowder from Liz's handgun ammo" mused Spanner.
A makeshift firebomb was constructed from the gleaned wheat remnants and half the ammunition. It was carefully placed at the base of the web wall in the main corridor, and remotely detonated using the shorted wires trick from behind the cargo hold door.
There was a huge flash of orange light from down the corridor, and then the viewport was obscured by a billowing cloud of smoke.
"That'll do the trick" hoped Spanner.
Spanner peered through the viewport in the door into the smoky corridor beyond.
Was there something there? A figure, hidden by the smoke?
"Arggghhhh" screamed Spanner, throwing herself back from the door and falling to the ground.
She curled herself into a foetal ball, whimpering, and not responsive.
Anton stepped past her and up to the viewport. Peering into the smoky corridor, all he saw was whisps of smoke slowly clearing away through the grills in the corridor ceiling. Shrugging his shoulders, Anton pulled down on the manual door lever and opened up the corridor. Stepping through the door, he strode in, Liz and Zeraphina followed. Spanner had recovered from her panic attack and cautiously stepped up behind them.
She couldn't recall what had triggered her attack and was quite nervous about entering!
As Anton peered down the corridor towards where the webby barrier had been, he made out something crouched down on the floor. A greyish coloured shape, its back towards him, was kneeling on the ground picking at something.
"Liz" he whispered, "Shoot that thing"
"BOOM" echoed Liz's handgun as she fired into the shape.
 |
| The hideous creature charged |
The bullet struck it dead centre, a squirt of strangely coloured blood erupting from the wound. Lightning fast, the thing leapt up, spun about, and flew towards Anton.
It was hideous, tentacles flapping around its face and strange articulated legs.
Everyone leapt backwards through the hold door and Anton slammed it closed.
Spanner's fingers danced across the control panel, starting the depressurization sequence, hoping that whatever that was, it couldn't breathe vacuum!
The thing thumped into the door a couple of times, then retreated back up the corridor, a blue-black coloured blood running down its back from the bullet wound. It disappeared into the dark end of the corridor.
"What the heck was that?" shouted Anton, shocked by the thing.
"I can kill it" noted Liz, handgun shaking in her hand.
"I can't open the door while the hold is in vacuum" she reported, "I've tried everything"
After repressurising the hold, and carefully checking through the viewport, the team opened up the corridor again and slowly advanced.
Once they had passed the location where the web seal had been, they came to another bulkhead door, open, leading on into some darkened room beyond.
"Close that already" grunted Anton.
Spanner reached out to shut the door, and something swung down out of the darkness behind the door. An alien claw, but Spanner spotted it swinging and managed to avoid it. The door closed with a reassuring thud, and everyone rapidly backed away, Spanned jamming one of her tools into the door mechanism.
"Maybe it can't use the doors?" hoped Spanner.
"We can't even fight" muttered Anton, "We can't go that way"
"I could kill it" exclaimed Liz.
"Bzzz - What are our options?" asked Anton to the crew on the Faerie Queene.
"Bzzz - We are going to drill out the rivets on the terrestrial maintenance hatch into the Docking Hold" reported Emerse. "Might take a few hours though" Emerse qualified, "Hold tight"
The away team settled down in the cargo hold to wait. Spanned kept an eye on the door to the corridor, Anton closed his eyes and appeared to nap, Liz fidgeted and twisted trying to get comfortable, and Zeraphina stood over Liz, quiet and motionless.
After an hour, Liz moved over towards Anton.
"You're looking kinda hot" she declared and threw herself down onto him.
Attempting to give Anton a passionate kiss on the lips, Liz grabbed Anton's shoulders.
But Anton wasn't napping, his senses alert, and he quickly dodged aside. They had a short struggle, Liz trying to pull Anton into her embrace, and Anton resisting.
[Opposed Strength rolls, and Shane "fumbled", rolling a 20, and then a "miss"]
Throwing Liz to the floor and restraining her, Anton quickly tied her up and lashed her to the rungs of the ladder. Liz was thrashing about, straining against her ropes, strange slimy spittle spraying from her grimacing mouth.
"Ewww" Anton complained, "What the hell?"
"I'm fine" screeched Liz, "Let me go"
"No damn way" stated Anton, stepping well clear.
"Bzzz - A few more hours" reported Emerse from the Faerie Queene.
"Bzzz - Split is out there cutting off the rivets holding the hatch closed"
An hour later Liz began to scream and thrash about. There was definitely something seriously wrong with her, although she continued to deny it. The rest of the away team decided that they had better get her up to the main corridor near the Docking Hold, otherwise it might not be possible to later, particularly if her condition continued to deteriorate.
"Bzzz - not long now" reported Emerse.
"Bzzz - Belle here. We are concerned that Liz might be infected. She can't come back to the Faerie Queene until we have analysed those samples. Sorry"
"Bzzz - Yeah, she ain't good" replied Anton.
"Bzzz - No ... I ... am ... fine" Liz panted between whimpers.
There was a dull thud that vibrated through the hull as Split threw the maintenance hatch off and it clanked along the hull before spinning off into space. Leaving Liz in the pressurised upper corridor, the rest of the away team (Anton, Spanner, and Zeraphina) hauled themselves out through the hatch, along the tether, and into the Faerie Queene's airlock.
Spanner handed the various sample over to Belle, who immediately took them to her makeshift lab and began an analysis.
"It'll be a few hours" Belle stated, "Keep an eye on Liz"
An hour later we all watched on Liz's suit camera as she began to writhe violently on the corridor floor, screaming in pain. The camera caught glimpses of the corridor and her suit as her head thrashed wildly around. We watched in horror as her chest bulged out and then erupted. A series of spider creatures crawled out and scuttled away down the corridor.
"Oh crap" wailed Belle.
Belle continued her sample analysis.
About an hour later, Gnostic, still watching through Liz's suit camera, saw a long grey arm and claw swing into view. The view shattered into white noise.
"I'm shutting down all comms to and from Liz's suit" he noted.
Sometime later, Belle called out from the lab.
"You need to go back in there" she declared, "I've identified this. A 'margrave' is an old term for a bodily organelle in the abdomen of some species of large arachnids. Could this be an Avian Spinosa?!"
...
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