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. |
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.
"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 |
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 |
"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.
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...
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