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
- MARMALADING: 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: Finn Cyborg from Querion
by Andrew.
Digitis
The Lost Crown jumped to Digitis, a NaHu (Non-aligned Human) system.
[ Jump rolls: Riley & Emerse vomited. Stasi got a 20 which meant all her hard-earned Jump-bonuses were lost. ]
They appeared out of jump-space at the standard 100 diameters arrival spot. Digitis had an E-class high-port in orbit around the main planet Digitis. There was very little radio traffic, and no other ships in the system.
Fearing the Imperium, even though this was a non-aligned system, Stasi hid in the faraday cage (chicken-wire-netting on a rebar frame grounded to the metal floor) in the cargo hold of the Lost Crown.
Riley hailed the station: "Digitis Command, this is X-boat Lost Crown."
"Proceed to station and dock. Be warned, we can not offer refined fuel," came the reply.
There was no request to be boarded.
"Where are you headed?"
"728-907"
"Oh. That's lucky, X-boat. We have a mochila for some scientists in that place!"
In the space station there was a cafe. Digitis was a water world, so there was octopus, fish and lobster on the menu.
The Lost Crown was refueled with the unrefined fuel. Unrefined fuel increases your chance of a mis-jump. But with the engineers on board the Lost Crown (Emerse, Gnostic, Sang), they had enough nowse to supervise the refuellers and determine the right times to change the fuel sterilizers. This made the unrefined fuel behave like refined fuel - as in it took out the chunks of fish roe, octopus ichor and ambergris.
The dusty mochila was delivered. It had been in storage for a year, and was a Version 1 model.
Gnostic plotted a jump path to 728-907, 100 diameters standard again.
Jump vomit this time was just Emerse and Gnostic.
During the trip, Emerse had some psycho-analysis from Belle. He was still suffering the trauma of being feasted upon by the Zhodani troopers all those weeks ago.
728-907
728-907 is in Imperium space. It is not a very populated system, with one verdant world, ten thousand population, and an E-class high-port in orbit. The Imperium had scheduled 728-907 to be colonized in the next few decades; it would get a name then too. Like Digitis, 728-907 had little radio traffic and no other active ships in the system.
The station answered their hail and welcomed them to dock. Like Digitis, Space Control had not seen an X-boat in a long time.
"We have three mochilas to deliver," said Anton, the x-boat rep.
Stasi stayed in faraday cage, after a feed off Anton [ 3 hp ]. Anton asked for a shoulder bite so it wouldn't show. Stasi went for his inner thigh instead. "That won't show."
There were two Imperium soldiers in fatigues with side-arms (but not in battle gear). They made no attempt to board the Lost Crown.
Riley and Stasi stayed on the ship.
Belle, Penny, Anton, Gnostic, Emerse went down to the planet in the space elevator. They took with them the three mochilas on sack-barrows.
The elevator cable joined the planet on an equatorial island (5km by 7 km) to a town called Seven. A nice tropical climate.
The 728-907 station had no fuel. They had an electrolysis system down on the coast next to Seven which made hydrogen from sea water, but it was unrefined and it would take ten full days to get enough fuel to jump.
The other option was to use the star, but that can be tricky [ a Pilot skill roll with penalty - failure means destruction of the ship ]. Riley was keen, but the rest of the group did not want to go down that path.
Down on the ground, in Seven, the group found the X-boat offices. They were rather run-down. There was one guy there in a shabby uniform (unlike Anton's knife-edged sharp and pressed uniform).
Emerse found a hairdresser, and spent six luxurious hours indulging himself in a wash, cut and blow wave.
"Would you like a happy ending?" asked the buxom hair-dressing girl.
"Yes please!" exclaimed Emerse. "I want the endings dyed blue."
Cauthon Institute
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| Cauthon Institute |
They used an X-boat corporation buggy for ground transport; Anton, Belle, Gnostic and Penny took the 2km trip out to the Cauthon Institute (Emerse was still getting his hair done).
Unlike the rest of the buildings in Seven, the Cauthon Institute was immaculate. Set against a picturesque hill and overlooking Seven, it had well-manicured lawns, well-maintained gardens and topiaries, but the grounds were surrounded by chain-link fencing with razor wire and cameras.
The group got past the gate cameras and got inside where they met the addressee: Dr Gilbert.
 |
| Dr Gilbert |
Dr Gilbert was dressed in a lab coat. He was followed by two soldiers in full battle armour.
The party asked about the Cauthon Institute. It was created fifty years ago by Mat Cauthon, a Vargr scientist and philanthropist, who pledged a large some of money. He made his wealth from a unique circular quantum-computing pattern called Ta'veren, used by Imperium space ship navigation computers.
Dr Gilbert opened the cantinas, under the supervision of X-boat rep Anton (as per protocol), with the rest of the party eagerly craning their necks to see what was in them.
"Almost a year," he muttered excitedly.
Inside each one was a wire cage each containing a mummified cat. And lots of what looked like spider web and egg sacks. The poor cats were not alive of course. He seemed disappointed.
He eventually looked up, then at the group: "How many in your group?"
"Seven," muttered Gnostic.
"Well, I need some volunteers," said Dr Gilbert. "Some sophonts. Some outside blood."
The four looked interested.
"The Institute has authorized me to offer 200,000 imperial credits. There are some tunnels on this island and they are not natural. Some mercenary explorers went down them and never came back."
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| Janette Drive |
"Of course, of course. You go ask. My offer stands. Contact my PA Janette."
He gave a secret FM channel.
The group left the Institute, picked up Emerse (with his smart new hair-do, blue tips and all) and then all ascended the space elevator to the high-port, and to the Lost Crown.
After being briefed, Stasi moaned "Hold on. If they find me they would kill me. You lot will hang me out to dry."
"It is the Cauthon Institute. They are a private group. Those soldiers in battle armour are robots."
Eventually, they calmed Stasi and got her to agree.
"We could take the air-raft from orbit direct to the institute," suggested Riley.
The plan was for Gnostic, Anton and Penny to go down first (on the space elevator) and reconnoitre before summoning the rest (Emerse, Belle, Riley, Stasi). Then, when happy, the other four would take the air raft direct from orbit to the Cauthon Institute helipad.
So after some toing and froing with Janette on the secret radio channel, Gnostic, Anton and Penny went down to Seven, and out to the Institute.
Here, Janette was with the two "robot" guards. She took the three in a rickety open lift down 100m underground beneath the institute itself. Here was a basement area with lots of mining equipment and drills and diggers. Off to one side was a smooth tunnel, three-people wide, lined with concrete, disappearing into the gloom.
"Down there."
This was good enough for the first scout party, so they returned up to the Institute (radio did not work underground) and radioed the Lost Crown.
The air-raft with Riley, Stasi, Belly and Emerse left the Lost Crown immediately, and flew down and landed on the Cauthon Institute helipad.
Janette shook Stasi by the hand.
"I haven't met a Zhodani before. Welcome to 728." Then she added wryly, "You're not planning to take over this system, are you?"
Stasi smiled thinly.
"That joke never gets old," said Janette.
Emerse asked Janette. "Why did you dig so deep?"
"To make it safe."
"But 100m is very deep."
"We are the Cauthon institute. We store stuff safely."
 |
| Rickety lift |
"Did you come across the middle of this tunnel when you dug down?"
"No, the end."
"Isn't that suspicious?"
She just shrugged.
Riley asked the two "robots" in battle armour. "Nice armour. I hear you two are robots."
"Yeah," said one sarcastically. "I'm a robot. Beep bop boop." He then started to stumble around like Lost In Space's Robot, waving his arms, doing more sarcastic mocking "Warning warning! Stupid people. Stupid people."
He obviously wasn't a robot. And he couldn't be AI - that was illegal. Especially in the Imperium which was even more strict and anti-AI than Entrope.
Emerse had an all-frequencies radiation monitor.
On the surface of the planet, the ionizing radiation reading was high - about five times Earth-normal, but that was expected from the system's G2V star.
On the way down the lift, Emerse took readings as they descended. It soon dropped to zero.
At the bottom, Emerse took a sample of the concrete. He was pretty certain that it wasn't Ancients concrete.
The guard gave Anton a powerful lantern. It was brighter than the torches and head-lights that the party used. Gnostic idly suggested that they check if the lantern had a tracking device, but this wasn't pursued.
Emerse got out his new drone to give it a test flight, and sent it down the tunnel.
Immediately, one of the guards shot at it, and missed.
"Don't!" shrieked Emerse.
"Spider!" Janette yelled.
The guard looked at drone, then looked at Janette. She looked at the drone.
"Why'd you call it a spider?" asked Riley.
"It is buzzing around like a spider."
"Spiders don't buzz. Bees buzz."
"Yeah - they do here."
She looked back at the guard.
"That's fine. He can keep his buzzing drone."
The Tunnels
The group arranged themselves for the tunnel, three wide:
At the front, Stasi and Riley, followed by Gnostic, Emerse with his drone, and Belle. followed by Anton and Penny.
Emerse sent the drone out, buzzing at high speed - straight into the wall. It smashed into hundreds of pieces which rained down onto the floor. Gnostic and Stasi stood on the propellors. Crunch crunch, oops.
Travelling without drone reconnaissance, further on, on the wall, was some Zhodani writing. Stasi read it.
"'The Twelfth Regiment was here'," she said."'Ubera nostra aspice.'"
There was a Zhodani story, 50 years ago. A squad from the 12th regiment went exploring near this system (in Digitis, actually). Never came back.
A bit further on, they came to a round 5m chamber with two exits. Same smooth concrete walls. Two passages off the side, 5m diameter.
 |
| After 50 years |
There was the desiccated body, arms crossed, of a Zhodani. The corpse looked as a 50 year old corpse should look. She had nothing useful on her, but they respectfully didn't disturb the body too much.
They exited the straight tunnel. Further on, 80 metres, lying face down, was the body of a human man, holding a pistol. There was a big hole in chest from a rifle. Dead about a year.
A bit further on were two males, same uniform, facing out with similar weapons.
Then another body. These all looked like they'd had a gun battle with each other. Eight all together.
Emerse and Gnostic masked up. Riley lit a fag. They headed further on in.
 |
| Stasi meets her nemesis |
Suddenly, Stasi heard a loud buzzing noise - high-pitched, like a mosquito (higher than a drone). She looked around and, to her horror, Riley's head had turned into a large mosquito's head.
"Can you see his head?" she screamed at Gnostic. Then screamed again, because Gnostic also had a mosquito head. Emerse too. In fact, everyone did. "Aaargh!"
No-one else could see this.
Stasi ran, in a panic. She wanted out of there. Stasi, super-strong Stasi, tried to push through the two weaklings Gnostic and Emerse in the second row, but in a glorious turn of luck, they managed not only to block her, but to trip her up and physically hold her down.
Riley leapt in to help. Stasi saw the giant mosquitoes all trying to inject their proboscises into her to (ironically) suck HER blood. So she thrashed about, manically. But with three of them, they held her down.
Belle rummaged in her backpack and managed to find a syringe with propofol. She injected Stasi in the butt.
The last thing Stasi remembered, before passing out, was the mosquitoes feeding hungrily on her, their noisy slurping audible in her dreams as her life-blood left her and she passed into blackness.
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