May 14, 2006

Present: Teah, Jane, Vel, Nick, Jack, Darla
New: Lucian

We wrap up things ongoing in the forums. Crow reveals that the demon that Herb took out was genetically Lizzie's offspring. The Commodore reveals that our new captain is going to be a spacer. Darla and Vel are, indeed, getting along famously.

We get called in to meet our new Captain. Teah and Nick receognize the guy, 5'6" 110lbs, human-derivative. But we haven't broken the news to Lizzie about her kinder, yet. The captain excuses himself and we take care of the informing, she takes it... rather well. Odd. The captain come back in.

He seems an easy-going sort. And a free-spacer. Along with him is another free-spacer, Lucian. Jofun, the captain, has been captaining for around 400  years, exploration about 250 years. Our new mission is to find allies in the sector. We make the introduction rounds. Lucian will be the XO and squad leader during away-missions. We will have to double-up bunks due to reduced quarters space on our new ship. The wonks at Sanctuary have figured out how to grow neural wire from pilots to wire ships, saving a lot of grief.

We stay on the EoN for 6 weeks while the neural wire is grown.

Before we ship out, we head to Jofun's quarters for a dinner.

Unfortunately for us, Jane wants to redecorate the Rec Room on the new ship. Wood paneling, and other fun things. Unfortuntately for us, this means we have to head planet-side to do some forrestry. There is grumbling. Jane ends up with Sawdust in her bed a lot. The young daikan engineer-mates wants to eat the sawdust, and Nick represses this urge. Dak eats the sawdust, but he CAN. The Daikan have a problem groking the idea.

We leave port and head to Alnitak system. Since it is Lizzie piloting, the travel goes fast. Jane holds a regular game night including strip poker. Jack hold regular gun training classes. Alnitak is a white dwarf system with a planet. .2 atmosphere. While in system we see a huge swarm of jelly-fish kind of things in space. WOW! Nebular Jellies. The captain tells us to get down there and check out some coordinates.

Teah takes us down to the spot and we get out. There is a low energy source towards the north around 5km out. We get into the hover-APC and head towards the energy source. Darla notices a crater that looks like an ejection crater instead of an impact crater. We take a closer look. And toss a Drone down there. The ejecta around the crater has a higher than normal proportion of polymers. Poking the sensors show that the core of the planet appears to be made of a polymer. Nick retrieves a small rock for Vel to Analyze. Vel says nothing in the past 3000 years. The tube shows plasma scorches.

We get to the energy reading site, and we find a small hill where it is. No warp signature. Darla sets up a couple of geophones and sets off an explosions. There is a cylindrical chamber with one half of the chamber less dense than the other. Darla and Nick head out to work on a bore-hole into the chamber to get a feeling for what's in there. Inside the chamber are reactors of some kind.

Some of the dead reactors are old 3rd Gen altharin tech. The newer ones are fission reactors. Older, somewhat leaky, but fission. Nick can't figure it out from here. Lucian says for us to open up a hole into the core, and get physical in there. Jack heads down the hole first.

Once down there Jack investigates the graffiti on the old Altharin reactors. Very profane. And it seems to vel and darla that the language is an offshoot of Altharin, possibly a slave-race origin. Emerald says to bug out once she sees the writing. We bug out, but Nick gets a Schematic spell off on the Reactors.

Ratha, short lives, hate any altharin decendants, highly cybernetic, and a side-order of hate for the living. That's the race that did the writing, according to Emerald. Lucian orders weapons-free. Lizzie wants to come down in Pinky, which we do. So we head back in to the chamber to look around, and follow the corodoors we found.

Very circular, and every 5km there were doors in the hall leading to little alcoves. This looks like a giant particle accelerator. Nick figures out where the control area is, which happens to be in the hill we found. The dreads unearth the accessway to it, and discover two dessicated altharin bodies in a control area that looks a lot like a missile silo. The bodies have spirit stones, so 3rd gen. Nick botches his attempt to extract the computer core, and there is much invective; 400+ years on the job gives a guy a wide pool to draw from. Vel attempts to contact the spirit in one of the stones.

The facility is a long-range defense system. The facility has been active as an Altharin station as recent as 30,000 years ago, and was one of the very last stations taken over. The facility has been used to fry star systems. The polymer core of the world is used for tracking and power.

The computer core is extracted and hauled up to our ship for repair there. Teah helps Nick, and it goes pretty quick; only 8 hours. Happily, we get the data core. Unhappily it is encrypted. But we do figure out that this facility was responsible for burning out 9 systems in the Stygian Abyss. Damnit. We relax.

EoN communicates that the system shall be destroyed. Lizzie deploys antimatter torpedoes to take it out. Then we're sent to Azha 2.  Two weeks in warp.

Azha, yellow startsystem, garden planet, 1.05G, 1.2 ATM, 80% hydro, tropical/hot, 95-deg F standard temp, low metals, low radioactive, bajillions of organic lifeforms, high biodiversity. Scan shows an unidentified merchant ship 10km from the location of where we were told to check out, 30 sentient lifeforms around the ship. Meanwhile, Crow injects something into Teah without telling her what it is. After pressing, it is a transmitter that is to be used in emergencies. Calous bastard.

The Captain sends us dirtside, quietly, to check the ship out before we make contact. Teah flies great and Jane jams like a pro. We land in a swampy area. We move out to check on the area of the other ship.

There is a machettied clearing and slave-looking people are digging out what looks to be a stone hand. Some beastmen are present as guards, and a couple folk with big-bore weapons. There is a bird thingy patrolling too. The ship is in the distance. Emerald knows about the bird, an Orry, faster-than-Herb-zippy. The Captain says that we can take 'em out if we think we can. So we set up to do just that.

Everyone takes an Aim maneuver, and the Shit hits the Fan. We slice-n-dice several things; the prime beastman, the Orry, and the Ska. All the slaves hit the dirt. Jack stealths and heads to the ship. Jinx to watch Jack's six. Vel handles the slaves, who scatter like roaches in a lit room. Two Ska leave out of the main hatch of the ship, but Teah's heavy bolter takes care of them. Jack sees a Terran in power-armor come around the edge of the ship, but the Terran doesn't see him (thank you stealth field); poof. Jack goes through the rest of the ship and finds three more prisoners.

The craft is a standard merchant craft. And is secure, says Jack. Yay! Teah says, "wait we have one more."

Unfortunately, Nick gets clawed by something big. The Sanctuary field catches it. And Vel's attempt to scrape off the thingy (a Grendolian).

Brice takes a shot at the Grendolian, but with a Shrieker round. Darla and Nick fail their saves, and RUN! RUN AWAY!

6.75:  Nick DIGS!
6.00:  Darla RUNS!
6.00:  Lucian drops to knee and takes a shot at the Grendolian, hitting the neck and severing it.

The Shrieker explodes. Nick's field catches the explosion, but Vel's doesn't. Happily, armor catches it for Vel.

Jack secures the ship fully, and keeps the slaves/prisoners secured. Mostly terran offshoots. Jane comes in and attempts to make reasonable contact.

Vel and Darla identify the composition of the statue: living stone. White stone. Not colored. Very interesting. The dirt around it is the accumulated loam of centuries, so the diggers were not disturbing an archeological site. Darla starts trenching.

Jack and Jane doubleteam a surviving Ska. Jack intimidates the crap out of it, and Jane makes sure the Ska is speaking truth. It is a Ska, and was a guard. Possibly a slave. Hard to get more then that out of it.

Jane cracks the ship's computer. The crew used something called the 'Star of Titan', which happens to be in the safe, to locate this planet for valuable living stone for resale. The Ska is able to crack the safe, which allows us to take a look at the thingy. It ain't magical. Jack reaches in and grabs the thingy with his hand that has the Ancient scale on it. It's an orb, and right behind it is a plasma pistol. In the Captain's footlocker, pointed out by the Ska, Jack finds the hand of an Ancient. Apparently the previous crew found a few stasis tubes with Ancients, and sold 'em. One of the tubes had the Star of Titan.

The Captain wants the shuttle salvaged, Nick gets to work making it flight-worthy again. Not a living ship, so will have to use the inter-system gates. A crap ship, but movable and useful for salvage and stealth missions.

The Ska identifies Jhem (our previous Ska guide) as Clan Pestilance. And says that Naarn Rot can be an occupational hazard for that clan. That solves that problem.

Vel does his thing over the ancient's hand, and the Star of Titan. The hand belonged to an ancient, who was purchased on an up-and-up slave market a while back. The previous captain had forced the Ancient gal to say a word to activate the Star. The arm was cut off before sale of the slave, but the captain couldn't figure out how to make the Star do its thing. The Star... was discovered 50  years ago,  and has been used several times. Only after the Ancient gal came aboard did it do anything.

The Ska apparently spent some time in the Republic on a Quest. He speaks fluent Republic, surprise! Spent time on Stanous.

Apparently Crow has something that'll help escavate the statue. The Captain says that what we want is at the foot of the statue. Crow exiles Darla from the proceedings for personal reasons. The ground is sectioned somehow, and Crow gives Darla a widget to put on the bottom of a shuttle to lift the cylindar of earth and statue out of the ground. Which Teah does. The Engines whine LOTS. The archeological dig is placed aboard the Merchant vessel. There is Cranky Mechanic thanks to the engine whine.

Vel gets a hint that the area around the statue was used as a last-ditch Altharin command-base. And the area was a religious area originally. Darla gets the statue-column sorted out for useful archeological stuff. The statue is 52' tall Altharin male, holding an orb.

Then we start digging around the pit Crow made. There was a base of operations down there, plus a lot of data crystals. The base razed the earlier temple.

The EoN arrives in system for pickup. We get the crystals and the cleaned statue transferred over. Asha and Jane interview our crew for a mental health-check. There are crayons.