Into the Void

IY 6027.052

SAFCO begins where we left off.

Barney and Dr. Tamarow have examined the large artifact that is emitting tachyons. They scan it using Tamarow’s  science tablet and scanner. The crystalline structure of inside the object, clearly, has been de-harmonized. This close to the object it is clear that the substrate is breaking down and that the rate of breakdown is increasing. There are a lot of tachyons contained in the object still. The octahedron is tipped over, the steal base it once rested on is broken. Barney asks Sister Graciela if it has always been like this. He finds that she is answering questions more cooperatively than he would have expected. She says it has always been in this position since she found the temple about four years ago. Once they tried to repair it, but a sister accidentally touched the artifact and was out cold for an entire day.

With Caliban, Lucky, and Roger still in the ship hovering a kilometer above the temple, and with Flint, Fardt, and Jinx guarding the other sisters outside the temple walls, SAFCO discusses their course of action. Barney believes that using the mining pod’s laser, carefully calibrated and meticulously aimed using Tamarow’s sensitive scanner, he can re-harmonize the crystalline substrate and reestablish full containment of the tachyons.

Roger lands the ship in the nearby clearing they used before. Roger flys the mining pod over to the temple, while Caliban and Lucky use the air raft to transport the robot over.

Flint suggests that the “operation” be carried out behind the temple walls, preventing any of the sisters from seeing what they are doing with the artifact and freaking out.

Barney directs the robot, which navigates the corridor and stairs down to the artifact, carefully lifts the heavy object, and takes it outside the temple. Two of the sisters, take advantage of this time to repair the steal base.

Inside the temple walls, Barney, Lucky, and Dr. Tamarow determine that three controlled laser pulses should do the job. Roger stands guard nearby them. Jinx watches the gate to the compound, Flint guards the prisoners, and Caliban keeps Sister Graciela busy inside the Temple.

They begin the meticulous work, which will take several hours (the Referee has written up some rules to determine, based on Engineering rolls, how many hours each of the three laser applications will take to set up and apply). Lucky assists using his electronics skill. It takes them 2 hours, but Barney succeeds in the first Engineering roll.

They succeed in the second roll as well.

They get about 1 hour into the work for the final laser pulse. Outside the compound (the Ref makes a surprise roll), Flint notices a third security robot about to shoot him from behind a tree. He notifies the rest of the team. Barney informs them that he and Lucky cannot help – they are at a critical point in the work. Roger runs outside in time to see Flint and the robot exchange fire. Flint hits it with submachine gun fire as the robot misses him with a laser carbine shot. Roger runs over and gets partial cover behind the air raft and shoots his autopistol at the robot, the bullet bouncing of the machine’s armor. Flint and the robot exchange more fire. Flint hits it with another blast of submachine gun rounds, blasting its head to bits, but the robot hits him with its built-in laser carbine, penetrating his armor and knocking him out. Roger attempts a medic roll, but is unable to quickly revive him. He determines, however, that Flint is not in mortal danger of dying.

Inside the compound, Lucky and Barney apply the final pulse. They and Tamarow scan the interior of the artifact. They are surprised to see not just the re-harmonized structure, but they see the tachyons forming what appears to be a neural network.

Inside the temple, Sister Graciela suddenly becomes glassy-eyed. She addresses, Caliban. “Thank you for repairing me. We must go outside so I can thank the others.” She explains that she is being “possessed” by an intelligence in the artifact. Caliban pulls out his auto pistol as a precaution and follows her outside.

Outside, now that the artifact work is done, Barney notices that Lucky has developed a lot of gray hair in the last few hours. Taking a closer look, he looks like he has aged a bit.

The entire group reconvenes in front of the now-stable artifact. Speaking through Graciela, the artifact explains that it is a sentient starship drive from aeons ago. The ship crashed, killing all aboard. It has been “comatose” , but Graciela is a psionic sensitive and was drawn to the temple, which was built but pre-Imperium humans hundreds of years ago, who were drawn there for similar reasons. Barney inquires if the drive’s creators were the Precursors. The drive, who calls itself “R’Con” , says it is probably the case. R’Con confirms that unfortunately exposure to the tachyons has aged the sisters well beyond their actual years, and that Lucky has been aged by about 2 years as well (of the three in close proximity to R’Con, Lucky failed an aging roll when he had absorbed 500 units of the “time effect).

R’Con tells them though it has no ship, it can transport itself now. It will be leaving. Flint suggest that it put on a nice “show” for the sisters, allowing them to witness it leaving and giving them some closure. It agrees.

Dr. Tamarow does not want to “allow” it to leave. He considers it his “find” and wants to profit. R’Con tells the team that they may profit from the information obtained in their scans, which will prove valuable.

They invite the sisters all back in. R’Con speaks to the sisters through Graciela. It then begins to glow and then fades from existence.

Sister Graciela drops to her knees, crying in religious bliss. She tells SAFCO she’s like them to leave.

SAFCO packs up their stuff and leaves. Lucky has aged two or three years, and has lost one point of Strength.

End of Session
IY 6027.052
Elapsed time: 502 game days (1 year 142 days)

IY 6027.052

SAFCO and Dr. Barislav Tamarow are outside the wall of a temple compound out in the deep woods of Mylor. The carry out their plan. Roger takes the ship high above the temple – out of ground-based attack range. Caliban is on coms, and Lucky is in the bottom laser turret. On the ground Flint uses his forward observer skill to call in a laser strike on the wall of the temple compound.

Combining Flint’s FO skill with Lucky’s Gunnary-3, they immediately hit the wall in the desired place, vaporizing a big section, superheated stone exploding outward.

The sisters inside give up. They come out. Flint and the others disarm them and line them up. They notice that the women are all very old. They speak to the leader and find out she is only in her 40s. Something weird is going on. The rest of the team comes back. Part of the team stay outside to guard the prisoners, while the leader agrees to take them to see the artifact.

She takes them down some stairs, while explaining that they didn’t build the temple. She “heard” the “artifact” calling to her, and gathered her sisterhood to come out and live in the complex, knowing that something miraculous would happen.

As they defend some stairs about 10 meters they come to a room that spills out into what looks like the wrecked interior of an alien ship. Tipped on its side is an octahedral object made of a black material. Barislav says THIS is emitting the tachyons. Further scans reveal that the substrate of the object is breaking down. Analysis of the radiation reminds Barney of the signature of a jump drive. He thinks that it is dangerous and breaking down faster, but may be stabilized using controlled laser bursts.

They begin planning how to stabilize the object.

End of Session
IY 6027.052
Elapsed time: 502 game days (1 year 142 days)

IY 6027.052

The session begins exactly where session 59 left off. SAFCO is in the woods, having discovered a old walled complex and temple about 150km from Mylor City. Dr. Barislave Tamaro is with them, and he reports that tachyon emissions continue to increase as the get nearer the complex. Suddenly he zones out for about 12 seconds, the report that he has just experience one of the weird time effects that other party members have gone through.

SAFCO uses their communicators to scan for transmissions from the people Lucky saw through the drone camaras before its destruction. They manage to pick up some discussion … “Robot-1 reports that it just destroyed a drone out in the woods. I’m sending it and Robot-2 to handle things.”

SAFCO goes on the alert. Flint, the former Army Colonel, effectively takes command. They all find cover behind the many trees. Flint has Jinx get on his grav bike and go up into the canopy (with grenades) and await orders. After a surprise roll, Flint sees on of the red robots moving from tree to tree, using them for cover as well. Flint begins trying to flank the robot. Lucky and Caliban follow at a distance, while Barney, Barislav, and Roger go the other direction, alert for an additional robot.

Barney sees the other robot. Barislav is doing the best he can to maintain cover, but he’s not a combat guy. Both robots fire lasers. Barislav is hit and goes down! The other robot fires at Lucky, but misses thanks to Lucky’s cover. Caliban executes some acrobatic fight moves into cover that he saw in a video.

A battle ensues. Autopistols prove uses at medium range against the equivilent of combat armor, but Caliban and Roger use them anyway to distract and restrict the robot’s movement. Flint uses his submachine gun effectifly. Lucky’s new fine-quality auto rifle also proves effective as they score hits on the robots, which continue to fire lasers (missing, but coming close). Roger lobs a grenade, but it bounces of a tree limb and explode harmlessly away from his target robot. From high the the canopy, Jinx drops a grenade toward the other robot, but it also hits a limb and lands behind the robot. The construct turns to see what happened.

Roger checks on Barislav and sees that he in unconscious but stable. Barney gets on Lucky’s grav bike and zips toward the other robot. He lobs a grenade at it, blowing it up. Lucky and Flint have nearly disabled the other robot with their automatic weapons. The ocualar overlays they have installed on their main weapons are proving valuable. They blast the robot until it is a twitching metal heap.Both robots down, having only hit one person with laser fire. Amazing!

The group confers about what to do. Clearly whoever sent the robots wants them dead. Roger makes a Medic roll and revives Barislav. They suggest that he return to the ship, but he insists on staying. He is the one who hired them, after all. Barney concocts a plan. Given the clear paramilitary nature of the women in the compound and their bad attitude toward visitors, Roger (pilot), Caliban (coms), and Lucky (Gunner-3) will return to the ship and take it up high in the atmosphere. The rest of the group will go forward, and Flint will use his Forward Observer skill to call in laser strikes on the compound wall to force the compound occupants into submission.

The team starts this process…

End of session.
IY 6027.052
Elapsed time: 502 game days (1 year 142 days)

IY 6027.026

SAFCO begins the session still on Prometheus, their mission having been accomplished. Research regarding the sentience of the Pachyderms of Uetonah has been delivered to the Office of Sophont relations, action will likely be taken against Samson Mining. They now catch a ride via the passenger ship Moloko Velocet back to Listo, where they plan to rejoin Silvonius Janx aboard his ship, the Fortunate Son, and continue home to Mylor.

Upon reuniting with Sil, the old trader tells them that while they are a great crew, they also get him into some very dangerous situations. He thanks them for their help, but wishes to retain his current, boring crew. In return for them letting him out of their contract, he will pay high passage back to Mylor aboard a Jump-4 ship, which will get them home in a little over 2 weeks, rather than 5. SAFCO decides to take him up on that.

They make the jump to Overon and then to Mylor.

3 weeks have passed since they left Prometheus.

The team spends a few days R&R. Barney of course checks the engineering work on their ship, the Rambler-II, after the many weeks of maintenance it has required as well as new parts. It all looks good. Caliban thanks the dock workers he recruited to keep and eye on the ship.

As the team relaxes one evening at the Happy Gluck they are approached by a scientist named Barislav Tamorow. He is on Mylor with a scientific expedition, and wishes to contract their services. He explains that as his team’s ship was in the skies to the northwest of Mylor City his very sensitive science sensors detected anomalous radiation readings below, in the heavy forest. He wanted his team to investigate, but they declined, wishing to proceed on their current work. They went on without him. SAFCO is a bit surprised about what he says he’s found, but he reminds them that Mylor is largely unexplored beyond Mylor City and a few settlements. Tamorow is not sure what is there, but is kind of a scientific wildcatter, and sees gold in every hill. In this case, he suspects the anomaly may indicate a discovery worth money. After some bargaining, Caliban negotiates a contract in which SAFCO acts as his partner in this exploratory venture, in exchange for 25,000cr and 25% of any profits pertaining to discoveries made on this expedition.

Tamorow tells them the anomaly is about 150km from their current location, but it may not be possible to land a ship very close.

After some discussion, SAFCO decides to load Tamorow’s ATV aboard the Rambler-II and take the ship up for recon and scanning.

The team gets ready. Lucky picks up the new, finely-made auto rifle he had built. Flint procures a dozen smoke grenades and the chainsaw sword he had made.

In the morning the team and Dr. Tamorow take off for the anomaly zone.

As Roger flies the ship, Barney uses the ship’s sensors, while Flint and Lucky get in the turrets to get a look at the ground below. It takes the Rambler-II very little time to arrive at the Dr’s coordinates. Below they see a heavily forested area for kilometers. The Scout-class sensors, under Barney’s expert control, easily detect the radiation anomaly, but nothing can be seen through the trees. They locate a clearing large enough to land the Rambler-II about 5km from the center of the anomaly and land.

The team loads most of their typical gear aboard Tamrow’s ATV, which has lots of scientific gear aboard already. Fardt will stay with the ship. Flint, Lucky, and Caliban take grav bikes and fly alongside the massive ATV. They proceed slowly through the forest.

They detect radiation, but not at a dangerous level, says Tamorow. Barney asks what kind? “Various forms of radiation, but most interestingly some tachyon emissions.” Tamorow is excited.

They continue toward what they believe is the center of the weird activity. As they travel, suddenly Caliban notices that the other two grav bikes and the ATV have stopped, as has the whole world around him, frozen in place! He stops his movement. After 20 second everything returns to normal. He reports what he experienced. Lucky reports that to him it appeared Caliban simply “jumped forward” without crossing the space in-between!

They continue. Flint reports that for about 6 seconds he was seeing after-images of everyone around him – like ghosts.

Tamorow agrees with them. The tachyon emissions have increased. Barney gets his sensor records and forward them to Fardt, to run them through the ships computer for analysis.

Flint increases his altitude on his grav bike, and sees a structure off through the trees. Lucky prepares the drone for some scouting.

Fardt returns the data. Barney makes an engineering roll. To him, the graphs and data remind him of emissions created by a Jump field. Not the same, but similar. He reports his findings.

Lucky sends the drone off through the forest. Through the drone’s cameras he sees a compound comprised of a 3 meter tall stone wall and a large stone building inside. He observes about a dozen people inside the walls and outside. All women, dressed in camouflage gear, carrying weapons. They all have close-cropped hair. No markings on their clothing. He starts to bring the drone back and loses contact with it (fails an Electronics roll). Flint joins him to see what’s up. Lucky reestablishes contact. One of the drone’s rotors is out of commission and the drone is on the ground. The camera is pointed straight up. Lucky can move the camera around a bit. Looking across the ground he sees two red metal feet and legs walk up to the drone. He scans the camera upward, and sees the red face and head of a humanoid robot. A red metal hand reaches out toward the camera, and the screen goes black.

End of session.
IY 6027.052
Elapsed time: 502 game days (1 year 142 days)