Descent

From Lexicanum

0.1   The Maelstrom

As they descended into the turbulent upper atmosphere of the gas giant, the crew of what was now identified as the Star Basterd were on high alert. Carissa hunched over the controls with ferocious concentration while Kemphit practically bounded about the engine room reading post-it notes left from him by the suddenly indisposed Enrico. Bartie meanwhile, with typically aristocratic insouciance,  lounged near the sensor station feet up browsing an archaeology textbook he’d found in uncle Vlen’s cabin. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a flashing light on the sensor console. With some help from the ship’s computer and an exasperated Clarissa he managed to identify it as  a distress beacon from an escape pod. The pod was about 5000 km away at and altitude of 36,000 km and on a trajectory that would plunge it much deeper into the atmosphere, where it would inevitable be crushed by the immense pressure, so Clarissa immediately laid in a course to intercept.

The Star Bunter was buffeted by massive gusts of winds and rocked by bolts of lighting that arced towards them from methane clouds, triggering huge explosions! Fortunately Clarissa managed to navigate them safely, while a wide-eyed Kemphit tried to keep the M-drive and power plant from overloading as the ship struggled against the adverse atmospheric conditions.  The pod was in the middle of  a debris field – obviously the remains of a ship.  After a complex series of manoeuvres - made even more difficult by the weather conditions - they eventually managed to on-board the escape pod. Bartie – vac-suited up in the hold, re-pressurised and cracked the seals on the pod. It’s sole inhabitant introduced himself as Jack Sparro, a former Navy man who’d also done time as a Free Trader. In typical fashion Bartie quickly signed him up as additional labour agreeing he could work his passage.

Eventually they remembered what they were here for and after a few mishaps managed to hook-up professor Ujinka’s G-band detector to the ship's sensor suite. They eventually detected a source of G-band emissions at about 2000 km planetary north of them at an altitude of 35,000k. At that altitude the pressure would be around 300 atmospheres and the winds gusting at 500 kph  - it would be a tricky flight. The crew took up their positions. Bartie ceded control of sensors to the more experienced spacehand Jack, and settled back with a nice glass of port.

Somehow they made i - though it was a bumpy ride! The hull took some damage as it was buffeted by high winds, random electrical discharges and resultant methane explosions. Eventually the Star Basterd broke through the squall clouds and into an area of clear sky, giving them their first clear view of the Ancient wreck.  It was the strangest ship imaginable. It looked more like a living creature, or maybe an abstract sculpture inspired by some alien lifeform, than an actual ship. There were no straight lines or symmetries, just curves and spirals. The upper half of the ship was a mostly smooth expanse of greenish metal, pock-marked with the occasional strange barnacle-like structure or growth. Above this an obvious energy screen shimmered. Towards the prow of the ship, there was a twisted spire like a narwhal’s horn mixed with the organic complexity of a banyan grove. The lower section of the hull was a tangle of silvery cords, wrapped around dozens of greenish-grey spheres. These spheres ranged in size from three to fifty metres in diameter. Some of them showed clear signs of battle damage; there were blackened scars along the hull, shattered hollow spheres, and twisted strands of the greenish hull metal trailing behind the wreck.

As they neared the upper deck the energy screen in front of them rippled and formed an oval portal – just big enough for the Star Bunter to pass through. Clarissa accepted the invite and headed in, landing the ship on the upper deck. A sensor sweep confirmed that not only was the pressure outside being maintained at 1g rather than the 300-or-so outside, but that there was a breathable atmosphere. Encouraged by this, the party debarked onto the surface.

Bartie led the way out of the ship – after dressing appropriately to meet any alien diplomats that might be awaiting them! As he strode out he indeed spotted an alien lifeform floating lazily nearby. He began shouting trying to attract it’s attention. And succeeded – not quite in the way he intended as the creature began rapidly deflating and arrowed it’s way towards him. As the gasbags deflated they revealed a long vicious- looking sharp barb aimed straight at Bartie! Fortunately for Bartie (and his nice suit) the creature missed, collapsing in a heap beside him!

For a minute they watched as the creature slowly re-inflated and then soared off. They then decided to investigate some structures that Kemphit had spotted through his telescope, heading for the nearest one a domeilike structure about a kilometre away. Clarissa stopped for a while to examin the soil they were waling on - finding it devoid of micro-organisms, but she did manage to find what looked like a human thigh-bone buried in the soil.On arrival at the dome they discovered it was some sort of map room showing the planets of the Boughene system – but not as they currently were! Jack and Bartie played for a while with the screens before Jack took some scans - determined to compare them against the astrogation charts back in the Star Basterd.

02. The Wreck

The party, led enthusiastically by Bartie, left the Map Room and continued exploring the upper deck of the wrecked ship and decided to made their way forward to the strange structure near the prow. On their way they were attacked by another of the strange fauna of this bizarre ecosystem - a large creature that they quickly dubbed a sky-shark. Clarissa bore the brunt of the sky-shark’s attack before concentrated fire from Enrico, Kemphit and Jack killed it.

The strange structure near the prow rose from the green hull like a bizarre crystal frond, and was approximately ten metres tall. The frond’s branches all bifurcated over and over again. The root of the frond was three metres in diameter, but the upper branches were so thin and tiny that they were only a few dozen nanometres thick. Jack discovered that invisible but impenetrable force screens protected the frond from any closer investigation. Bartie speculated it was some kind of sensor array, but basically they hadn’t a clue.

Getting bored, Bartie led they way back toward the stern of the ship to investigate the structures there. On the way, Enrico found a strange silver disc half-buried in the dirt and retrieved it. As they neared the place they had left the Star Basterd, they noticed a piece of debris from the ship - tendrils had emerged from the Ancient ship to wrap around the piece of metal and appeared to be “feeding” on it slowly absorbing the metal. Concerned, they headed to their ship and noticed the same tendrils wrapped round the landing gear.

Filled now with a sense of urgency they headed to the ziggurat at the stern of the sip. In front of the ziggurat there was a free-floating sphere of metal that seemed to be made of a hair-thin coil that had been wrapped around itself millions of times, like a giant ball of twine. The sphere was two meters wide, and hovered three metres off the deck. Three pillars surrounded the metal sphere; each pillar each having a control console. While the others went to check out the consoles, Clarissa approached closest to the sphere and touched it. She felt sick and weak after doing so. After much experimentation, discovering they could rotate and lower the sphere, they decided this was either a comms system or a weapons system.  The only way to know for sure was to activate it – so Jack did so!

A pulse of violet energy leaped out of the deck and vanished into the sphere. They could see the pulse of energy race around the coiled cable of the sphere, growing brighter and more powerful as it travelled. Suddenly, the weapon discharged. The resultant energy pulse punched through the ship’s energy shield, breaching it and causing it to start collapsing. As high pressure hydrogen gas poured into the upper deck, they started running to the nearby ziggurat and began hauling themselves up the steps, even as they drowned in the now-lethal atmosphere.

Atop the ziggurat was a metal cube three metres on a side. On of the sides of the cube an opening was covered by an opaque haze -  a low-intensity force-field similar to the one they had seen in the Map Room. Kemphit was first to arrive, but despite the searing in his lungs, he held back to help his friends, thrusting through the opaque barrier to the safety within. Once inside, they fell to the floor, desperately trying to catch their breath, gulping in air and coughing out the lethal gasses in their lungs. 

Inside the cube, they could see a dull grey panel, like a door or full-length mirror, attached to the rear wall. Next to the panel was a circular control, composed of five small buttons, one large one, and a trio of medium-sized ones. While Bartie donned a respirator and stuck his head through the entrance to see what was happening outside, Jack began experimenting with the buttons. After several combinations were tried, the dull-grey surface began to shimmer and shift. Kemphit reached out to touch and immediately vanished. Jack, concerned, launched himself after Kemphit only to vanish as well! Shrugging their shoulders, Clarissa and Enrico followed, so when Bartie stuck his head back inside to inform everyone that the ship’s shield had regenerated, he found himself alone!  Managing to get the others on the comm-link, he discovered that they had teleported elsewhere in the ship.

This capsule in which the others found themselves echoed with an alarming grinding noise.. The available space in this sphere was only a fraction of its full volume, as most of the capsule was walled away by a transparent barrier. On the far side of the impenetrable wall, the starship was sucking in gases from Komesh and apparently reprocessing them into material for repairs. At random intervals, there was a loud report from inside the machinery, and the teleporter in this room flickered on and off for an instant, as a nugget of refined material was transferred. As well as the portal there was an iris valve on one wall. They contacted Bartie and urged him to join them, but Bartie was reluctant to step through the portal unless convinced he could return safely. Enrico volunteered to demonstrate, and stepped  back through the portal - unfortunately he found himself in another, different sphere!

Bartie, deciding he required further fortification before braving such uncertainty, decided to head back to the Star Basterd to restock his hip-flask of port.

0.3 Reunion

After much and varied experimentation with the teleport system, gained by randomly teleporting around the various spheres or pods attached to the underside of the Ancient ship. Clarissa took notes and ordered the others around while an increasingly squiffy Bartie shouted out suggestions based on his extensive knowledge of mathematics. Eventually the party acquired a rough understanding of how the system worked. They  continued their explorations – recovering some Ancient artefacts including a couple of disintegrator pistols and a psionic crystal of some kind. Though Kemphit seemed particularly wary around the crystal,refusing to go anywhere near it, it seemed to have no discernable impact on anyone who did touch it - other than glowing prettily.
 
In the process of their explorations they were nearly gassed to death twice. Once when a pleasantly sozzled Bartie released the alien atmosphere from a sealed pod , and again when Jack was unwise enough to force open a sealed iris hatch – only to find it led to a ruined pod that was exposed to the gas-giant’s noxious atmosphere. After this everyone, especially Bartie was badly injured and Enrico set about doing what first-aid he could. Eventually they decided they needed the more extensive medical support offered by the Star Basterd and decided to return there to recuperate.  On arrival however, they found the ship in a much worse state than they had left it. The Ancient ship had continued absorbing material from the hull and the Star Basterd was now partially collapsed, it’s landing gear almost completely eaten away, and tendrils extruded from the alien hull now wrapped themselves around the rest of the mineral-rich hull.
 
They decided to salvage what they could from the Star Basterd and set up base in one of the lower pods. They spend a day or so resting, Enrico giving constant medical supervision to Bartie. In the course of their meanderings they discovered what appeared to be the Ancients ship command sphere, and that the ship’s computer was still active - although no-one could understand what the ship’s computer was trying to tell them, until elsewhere in the wreck, Kemphit found an Ancient translator module in the ruins of what looked like a damaged low-berth.
 
Returning to the command sphere, with the translator, Kemphit was unable to communicate with the computer. The computer, mistaking them for surviving crew members, immediately turned over command to them and requested instructions. After surprisingly little debate, Kemphit ordered the ship to take them up into orbit. Which with a distressing groaning  of the damaged hull the ship duly did – only to take them right into the path of the waiting  Alahir, which immediately hailed them and warned them to heave-to. The walls of the command sphere lit up with a dispay of nearby space showing the imperial cruiser far too close for comfort. Kemphit instructed the ship to fire up it’s jump drives and an unfamiliar whining began filling th e air around them, they wre stil ldebating the best course of action  when the Alahir hailed them – “ This is the Imperial vessel Alahir and you are in violation of our space. Identify yourselves immediately!” 
 
Before they could formulate a response, another ship jumped in, well within the 100-diameter jump limit of the gas giant. It was a design that none of them had seen before, although they had detected its presence over Alell.  The ship was an enormous pearly white cone, like a narwhal’s horn. At it approached, it spun and long tendrils unfurled from it. Spikes sprouted from along the ship’s flanks. White spots – mobile white globes – orbited around it, waxing and waning in response to perceived threats. The Alahir turned towards this new threat, but as they watched on the display, a single pulse from a weapons turret utterly destroys the Imperial ship. The Alien ship then turned towards them!
 
A voice, chillingly familiar to Bartie rang out through the command sphere “ ‘Listen, it’s Uncle Vlen. Don’t mind how, you’ve got to trust me. I need you to disable the computer system on that 300,000 year old rust-bucket you’re flying. If you’ve got a weapon that can damage it, then just blow a chunk out of the wall. Otherwise, see if you can turn it off or order it to stand down, before it drags you off somewhere.’
 
The ship’s computer requested instructions so everyone began shouting at once! Enrico and Clarissa shouting to the computer to abort the jump, Jack shouting they should head for the primary weapon they had found on the upper deck. Bartie after a stunned moment of silence saying – “I don't trust him”.

There was a bright flash of light as the Ancient warship fired...